Lexical Units and Conceptual Profiles
Current repository contract versus production evidence. Profiling describes canonical LU → reusable Element profiles, with frame-relative FE realizations. The earlier description of FE-targeted profiling as current and Element targeting as future is outdated. However, the read-only
prodStructural snapshot of 2026-10-13 found all 168 local schema FEs withidElement = NULLand no explicit Grounded_in rows touching that inventory. It does not demonstrate a populated LU-to-schema profile chain or audit all lexical profiles.
What a lexical profile contributes#
A lexical profile records what one LU foregrounds within a construal. It is distinct from:
- Home-frame membership: the frame the LU directly evokes.
- Denotation/type: what kind of concept the lexical reading denotes.
- Incorporation: a local FE whose contribution is absorbed into the LU's meaning.
- Schema analysis: the schematic structures and role correspondences supporting the frame's meaning.
A profile does not move the LU to another home frame. Shared reusable Elements can expose realizations in several frames, but those are not extra direct evocations. Nor does an external realization automatically determine the LU's ontological type.
The Profiling page specifies optional positive rank on canonical Element targets: rank 1 is most prominent; null means unordered. Trajector/figure terminology can describe an interpretation of prominence, but rank alone does not establish the correct schema or participant analysis.
Dimension, value and change#
A useful semantic contrast is between naming a dimension, naming a value on it and describing a change along it:
| Illustrative reading | Contribution to investigate |
|---|---|
| altura, temperatura | A property dimension. |
| alto, quente | A value or region on a dimension. |
| Becoming warm | A transition. |
| Heating something | An action causing a change. |
| Being in a produced condition | A resultant situation, where that dependence is constitutive. |
These are constructed contrasts, not assertions that the corresponding production LUs share one frame, have populated profiles or belong to one schema. The frame's full meaning decides whether a common attribution structure is sufficient or whether different frames/groundings are needed.
The former cansaço / cansado / cansar discussion made categorical claims from morphology and sentence compatibility. Such forms can support different readings, including bodily sensation, condition or change. Review their actual definitions and annotations; do not infer a namespace or profile from derivation alone.
One construal versus multiple readings#
Several profiled Elements can belong to one construal. Alternative senses require reading-level analysis and potentially distinct LUs. Neither shared spelling nor a common schema licenses merging them.
Likewise, causing, becoming and holding a condition can require different frames even if they involve a shared dimension. A schema's reusable structure does not erase those lexical distinctions. See FrameNet patterns.
Participants and actions#
Naming a participant category is different from describing its activity. FNBr's agentive-name policy places a participant reading such as trabalhador in an Entity frame, with its event participation associated separately. A proposed profile may foreground participation meaning, but it is not a substitute for the required FE–Frame or LU–FE association, and it does not move the participant LU into the event frame.
For conceptual denotation/type vocabulary, consult Lemmas, rather than the former nonexistent ontological lus page. Type compatibility is not proof of semantic allocation.
Connecting an LU to a schema: evidence needed#
Before claiming that a lexical profile foregrounds a particular schema role, verify:
- The LU's actual reading and home frame.
- Its active canonical Element profile and any rank.
- The current local FE realizations of that Element.
- The relevant frame-to-schema relation and supported role mappings, or another explicitly identified structural path.
- Whether the path is stored, proposed, incomplete or contradictory.
Legacy FE-targeted provenance is historical evidence, not a second active semantic profile source. An absent Element link cannot be filled in by FE name matching. The conceptual-documentation refresh records these limits; it does not perform profile migration or database corrections.