Semantic Ambiguity of Spatial Relational Nouns inJapanese
Sumiyo Nishiguchi
Department of Management
Tokyo University of Science
500 Shimo-kiyoku, Kuki-city, Saitama 346-8512, Japannishiguchi@rs.tus.ac.jp

Abstract. This paper discusses spatial terms in Japanese. Common nouns suchas ue “on/over/above” and naka “inside” are used in Japanese to represent spatial and temporal locations, as front in in front of, or center in in the center ofin English. I consider Japanese common nouns that represent spatial locations tobe relational nouns that are two-place predicates, one of whose argument slotsis filled by the entity represented by the other NP in the NP1 -no NP2 construction. Since the corpus data [1] suggest that spatial nouns are often semanticallyambiguous among physical, metaphorical, and temporal locations, the unified semantic entry in the Generative Lexicon (GL) [2] proves to be useful for handlingthe semantic ambiguity.

1 Spatial Relational Nouns
Languages such as Chickasaw in North America use relational nouns to express locations [3], rather than prepositions such as in, on, under, or between as in English.
In (1a), pakna’ “top” is a relational noun, that follows its possessor chokka’ “house.”
Japanese is another language that expresses locations using relational nouns such asnaka “inside,” ue “on/above,” and shita “under” as in (1b).
(1) a. chokka’ pakna’house top“the top of the house (the house’s roof)”[3, 4]
b. mune-no mae-de tenohira-o awase (4179)
chest-GEN front-LOC palms-ACC hold“Put your palms together in front of your chest”

1

Mae “front” is a relational noun that does not stand alone semantically; therefore,
it always means “the front of something,” for example, musuko which means “son”
always stands for “someone’s son” (e.g., “Bill’s son”). Naka “inside,” ue “on/above,”and shita “under” are two-place holders, and nouns such as aida “between” that require
another argument are three-place predicates.
1 The numbers in parentheses indicate the sentence IDs of the output of the data in the Yahoo!

Chiebukuro section of [1] using ChaKi.NET 1.2β .

(2) a. [[ue“on/top”]] = λ xλ y[on(y)(x)]b. [V P [[NP kohi-no ue]-ni] [miruku-o] [V ireru]]
coffee-GEN
on-DAT milk-ACC put“put milk on (the surface of) coffee”
c. [[kohi − no ue“on co f f ee”]] = λ x[on(ε y.coffee(y))(x)]

2 Ambiguity among Physical, Metaphorical and Temporal
Locations
Table 1 indicates that Japanese relational nouns are ambiguous among three types ofreadings—physical location, metaphorical location, and temporal sequence. For example, the most frequent relational word ho “toward” is generally used for comparisonsand indicates preference as in (3a). Such meaning is a metaphorical extension of literal physical directions as in (3b). On the other hand, mae “front/before” is ambiguous
between physical and temporal locations; for example, shuppatsu-no mae “before departure” (4000) and mune-no mae “in front of the chest” (4179).
Spatial Noun
Translation
Instances Share Physical Direction(Share) Metaphor(Share) Time(Share)
hotoward
54
0.338
6(0.111)48(0.889)
naka
in
34
0.213
21(0.618)13(0.382)
aida
between/among10
0.063
6(0.273)1(0.1)
3(0.3)
ueon
90.05
512
mae
in front of/before60.037
51
shita
under
6
0.038
6(1)
ue-notop
6
0.038
6(1)
atoafter
4
0.025
4(1)
chikaku
near
4
0.025
4(1)
TOTAL
160
175
74
11Fig. 1. Distribution of Spatial Nouns among 3083 Occurrences of “NP1-no NP2” in the Yahoo!
Chiebukuro portion of [1](3) a. Chunichi-yori
Hanshin-noho-ga
tsuyoi (2219)
Chunichi Dragons-than Hanshin Tigers-GEN direction-NOM strong“The Chunichi Dragons are stronger than the Hanshin Tigers”
b. (neko-ga) watashi-no ho-e
ki-masu. (5177)
cat-NOM me-GEN direction-GOAL come-HON“Cats (usually) come toward me.”3

Modeling Lexical Ambiguity of Spatial Language

3.1

Formal Semantics

This section formalizes the spatial terms in Japanese. Most of them are two-place holders except aida “between” which is a three-place predicate.

(4) a. [[mae]] = λ x,y[in-front-of(x)(y)]b. [[mae]] = λ t,t’[before(t)(t’)](5) a. [[mune − no mae“in f ront o f the chest”]] = λ y.in-front-of(ε x.chest(x))(y)b. [[shuppatsu − no mae“be f ore departure”]]= λ e’.∃e[before(time(e))(time(e’))&departure(e)](6) a. [[ho]] = λ x,y[toward(x)(y)]b. [[ho]] = λ x,y[to(x)(y)](7) a. [[(physical)naka]] = λ x,y.in(x)(y)b. [[(metaphorical)naka]] = λ x,y.among(x)(y)(8) a. [[nabe − no naka“inside the pot”]] = λ y.in(ε x.pot(x))(y)b. [[reshipi − no naka“amongrecipes′′ ]] = λ y.among(ε x.recipe(x))(y)(9) a. [[aida]] = λ x,y,z[between(x)(y)(z)]b. [[aida]] = λ x,y,z[among(x)(y)(z)]c. [[aida]] = λ t,t’[t’= during(t)]ha-noaidaatari-ga
chairoku naru-no-desu-ka. (2906)(10) a. Ha-to
tooth-and tooth-GEN between vicinity-NOM brown become-GEN - HON - Q“Have the gaps between your teeth turned brown?”b. Geinojin-no
aida-dehayat-teiru
daietto-shokuhin (427)entertainer-GEN among-LOC popular-PROG diet-food“The diet food popular among TV entertainers”
c. Koko sukagetsu-no
aida (3201)
this a few months-GEN period“during these few months”
3.2

Lexical Ambiguity in the Generative LexiconContrary to the previous section which listed two-way or three-way ambiguous lexical
entries, the GL [2] has the means to provide unified lexical entries for a single spatial term, due to its elaborate lexical semantic information. In particular, the Lexical
Conceptual Paradigm (LCP) [4, 2] is a powerful tool for resolving semantic ambiguity.
The formal quale in GL contains ontological information. In (11), coffee is a drink
according to its formal quale, and its higher ontological category is a physical entity,
which implies that ue “on” is interpreted physically. The unification profess is describedin the following manner:(11)COFFEE
ARGSTR =
QUALIA =

ARG1 = x DRINKD-ARG1 = y HUMAN
D-E1 = e1 PROCESS( )FORMAL = LIQUID x(TELIC = DRINK ACT e1 , y , x

UE “ ON ”
 ARGSTR =
 

 QUALIA =)


KOHI - NO UE “ ON COFFEE ”
 x
ARG1 = PHYSICAL OBJECT   ARG2 = y PHYSICAL OBJECTARGSTR =

D-E1 = e1 STATE[()]
FORMAL = ON e1x , x , y
QUALIA =

ARG1 = x PHYSICAL OBJECT yARG2 = COFFEE


D-E1 = e1 STATE[()] 
y
FORMAL = ON e1 , x ,Mae “in front/before” is lexically ambiguous between physical and temporal locations. Lexical ambiguity calls for a meta-entry, that is, the LCP, which is a Cartesian
product of the different concepts represented by a single lexical item [2, 5] as in (12).
For example, book is a Cartesian product of a physical entity and the information contained within it, thus, (13a,b) are both grammatically correct.
(12) mae.lcp = {location.time, location, time }(13) a. The book is on the table.
b. That book was right. An earthquake did happen as it had predicted.
(14)




MAE

“ IN FRONT / BEFORE ”
ARGSTR =QUALIA =MUNE - NO MAE“ IN FRONT OF CHEST ”
x
ARG1 = PHYSICAL OBJECT ARGSTR =ARG2 = y PHYSICAL OBJECTe1E1 =PROCESS
E2 = e2 STATEe3
D-E1 =STATE QUALIA = 

LOCATION . TIME LCPFORMAL = R


()()
 LOCATION e3 : IN FRONT OF e3 x y , , , )
(()()) (TIME e2 : BEFORE TIME e2 , TIME e1

SHUPPATSU - NO MAE
“ BEFORE DEPARTURE ”

ARGSTR =QUALIA =


E1 = e1 DEPARTURE

E2 = e2 STATELOCATION . TIME LCP((FORMAL = TIME e2 : BEFORE e2 , e1)) 

AIDA

ARG1 = x PHYSICAL OBJECT
ARG2 = y BODY PART
e1

D-E1 =STATE
LOCATION . TIME LCPFORMAL =
e1 :)
(LOCATIONIN FRONT OF e1 , x , y

“ BETWEEN / AMONG / DURING ”
ARGSTR =QUALIA =

LOCATION . MENTAL LOCATION . TIME LCP FORMAL = R
() LOCATION x , y , z ,
()
MENTAL LOCATION x , y , z ,)(()

TIME e1 : DURING e1 , x
ARG1 = x LOCATION HUMAN TIMEARG2 = y LOCATION HUMANzARG3 = LOCATION HUMAN
E1 = e1 STATE

Argument structure also needs to have metaentries since mae “front/before” andaida “between/among/during” combine with different types of semantic arguments.

4Conclusion

In this paper, spatial language in the form of “NP1 -GEN NP2 ” constructions in Japanese
was taken from [1] and classified into literal, temporal, and metaphorical meanings.
Spatial terms are semantically ambiguous relational nouns. Lexical meta-entries in theGL effectively handle the semantic ambiguity of the most common spatial nouns.

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