Functional frames in the interpretation of weak nominals

This paper argues that so-called weak nominals , like the definite object in listen to the radio and the bare nominal in watch television , should be analyzed against the background of functional frames , representations of stereotypical use of certain common objects. In this way the compositional semantic analysis of weak nominals can be grounded in the lexical semantics of telic roles and frames that originates from computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive psychology.