Defining Action Types: on the roles of Thematic Structures and Argument Alternations

The paper focuses on the relation between Action Types (ontological objects that identifies the referential potential of a verb) and the Thematic Structure and Alternations of verbs. The empirical analysis shows that these linguistic features are not properties of the verb itself, but vary in relation to its referential variation. Given this evidence, we argue that Thematic Structure and Argument Alternation can help in the identification of the different types of action to which a verb refers, providing evidences to define the granularity of action concepts in the development of an ontology of actions.