Treatment of “past”

 

The sense inventory in ODE seems to be the same as NODE/DIMAP; DIMAP shows only one core sense and 4 subsenses. ODE has three core senses with two subsenses, but the wording is everywhere the same. The sense numbering in the spreadsheets uses ODE’s inventory.

 

Notes from the spreadsheets:

Only two senses of past are labeled as occuring in PPs in FrameNet, and they are the two spatial senses: 1(1) and 2(1a), which are closely related (see below). The other senses of past in ODE are reasonably common and their absence from FN is anomalous (but this is not the first time such a thing has occurred).

 

 

Other instances of past that may deserve idiomatic treatment

Common informal idioms consisting of past PPs (e.g., past its sell-by date, past it, past its prime) can fairly  be subsumed under sense 3(2), the temporal sense.

 

 

Other Notes:

There is very little difference in sense between sense 1(1) and 2(1a) and I’ve given them the same SRType because in a coarse-grained analysis they’re close enough in meaning and in many cases the senses as defined in ODE are interchangeable. I did, however, label them separately in FrameNet in order to preserve the small distinction that exists. Both nearly always attach to verbs, though 1(1) occasionally has a noun POA; and given the wording in ODE’s defs, the difference is mainly based on subsidiary meaning in the verb or larger sentence context. Sense 1(1) emphasis location in relation to something; sense 2(1a) emphasizes motion past something, often has a personal pronoun as the complement, and very often incorporates the idea that the complement witnesses, notices, or is meant to witness the thing or person that is moving past them.