About: Null instantiation

In frame semantics, a theory of linguistic meaning, null instantiation is the name of a category used to annotate, or tag, absent or frame elements (Fillmore et al. 2003, Section 3.4). Frame semantics, best exemplified by the FrameNet project, views words as evoking frames of knowledge and frames as typically involving multiple components, called frame elements (e.g. buyer and goods in an acquisition). The term null refers to the fact that the frame element in question is absent. The logical object of the term instantiation refers to the frame element itself. So, null instantiation is an empty instantiation of a frame element. Ruppenhofer and Michaelis postulate an implicational regularity tying the interpretation type of an omitted argument to the frame membership of its predicator: "If