Verbos de respuesta: análisis léxico-construccional

Abstract

The hypothesis is (i) that answering predicates cannot be assimilated to communication predicates, and (ii) that responder and contestar do not have the same meaning. Even where there seems to be some overlap, (i) answering predicates have a proper conceptual structure, and (ii) the individual verbs instantiate a different framing. The meaning structure of the verbs emerges through generalization and specification processes and various mechanisms of metaphorical and metonymical extension. The network metaphor captures the dynamic nature of the semantic categories as well as the relations between them. The variety of constructions brings to the fore the relational dimensions that can be alternately profiled. In order to deal with questions left unaccounted for by exclusively lexicalist or constructionist approaches, the focus is on semantic role fluctuations and on the interaction between constructional meaning and lexical semantics.