Participant Roles and how they are Expressed Grammatically

Chapter 6Semantics 3430

Fall 2007

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What does a Verb Need?• An early approach based upon grammatical

frames, which fails to deal with semantics• An alternative approach based on the relationship

between semantic roles and grammatical roles• Linking theory: the theory that we use to predict

possible relationships between semantic roles and grammatical roles

• A new approach to verb flexibility: construction grammar.

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Subcategorization• Chomsky (1965) proposed to divide up all

verbs into subcategories based on their grammatical frames.

• put _NP PP (put the shoes under the desk)• eat _(NP) (ate lunch, ate at noon)• give _NP PP (give the account to Pat)

_NP NP (give Pat the account)• contribute _(NP) (PP) (contribute some

money; contribute to the Red Cross)

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What about Semantics?• Alternations: The form of the frame can be

invariable while its content changes.

• Examples involving the frame V NP PP:– Moe loaded the truck with lobsters.– Moe loaded the lobsters into the truck.– She drained the cash from the account.– She drained the account of cash.

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What about Semantics?

• A single NP in a verb’s grammatical frame may express several different types of roles:

She risked his hostility

a swim in the ocean

her life

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A New Theory: Semantic Frames

• Words highlight some parts of a scene and background others.

Figure 1. Hypotenuse.

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Semantic Frames

• Verbs denote aspects of scenes.• Scenes have participants.• Verbs highlight some participants in a scene and

background others.• Converses: buy/sell; own/belong to; lend/borrow.• How exactly do these converses work?• The members of each converse pair share a frame;

they differ with regard to which participants of that frame they place in the foreground.

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Foregrounding by a Verb

• What makes us say that a given participant is foregrounded?– It is necessarily expressed in the sentence:

• *She put the peanut butter.

– It is expressed by one of the core grammatical roles: subject and object:

• She filled the bathtub. She poured the gin.

• Thematic roles expressed by preposition phrases are called obliques.

• Obliques are almost always omissible.

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Examples of Foregrounding: The Commercial Event Scenario

• There are two levels at which we can describe participant roles:

– Frame-specific roles

– Thematic (semantic) roles

• We will generally be sticking to thematic roles, but to talk about how converses work, we need to use frame-specific roles too.

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Examples of Foregrounding: The Commercial Event Scenario

• The Commercial Event Scenario

buyer seller goods currency

• The Transfer (or Removal) Scenario

agent goal/recipient theme source

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The Alignment of Roles from the Two Levels

buy buyer seller currency goodsagent source theme

sell buyer seller currency goodsgoal agent theme

pay buyer seller currency goods

agent goal theme

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What’s the Role of the Subject?

• In the set of verbs that presuppose the commercial-event frame, the verb’s subject can correspond to different frame-specific roles: – Buyer (buy)– Seller (sell)– Goods (cost)

• Subject can also correspond to different thematic roles (6.2).– Patient: The ice melted.– Theme: The rock rolled down the hill.– Recipient: She got a prize.

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Another Two Levels: Action and Thematic Tiers (6.3)

• When we are identifying thematic roles, there are levels at which we can do that:– The thematic tier (movement and location)

– The action tier (causation and change of state) • Invent a sentence in which a single argument is

both:– Agent and goal– Patient and theme– Agent and theme

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Thematic Roles and Metaphor

• The theory of thematic roles requires us to assume metaphorical mappings.

• Without metaphor, we would have to think of a new set of semantic roles every time a verb (like give) is used metaphorically!

• What are the thematic roles of the participants in the following sentences?– They laughed her out of the room.– She fell into a depression.– She gave him an idea.– Let’s come back to the main point.

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From Semantic Roles to Grammatical Roles

• Linking theory proposes two proto-roles:– Proto-agent: has volition, is an energy source, moves.

– Proto-patient: acted upon, undergoes change of state.

• Proto-roles intervene between thematic roles and grammatical roles (subject, object, oblique).

• An intransitive clause may have either an proto-patient or a proto-agent, but not both.

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Semantic Role Hierarchy

• Proto-agent will be linked to the subject role.

• Proto-patient will be linked to subject role or the object role, if the verb has an object.

agent instrument location theme patientProto-agent Proto-

patient

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How does Linking Work?

• Traditional grammar defines subject as the ‘doer of an action’, but subjects need not be agents:– Sue broke our window (with a rock).

– A rock broke our window.

– Our window broke.

– *A rock broke our window by Sue.

• A lower-ranking thematic role can link to subject only if no higher-ranking role is present.

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Exceptional Linkings

• Which sentence in each pair violates the predictions of the semantic-role hierarchy?

– She loaded lobsters onto the truck.– She loaded the truck with lobsters.

– She stripped the leaves off the tree.– She stripped the tree of leaves.

– She gave the account to Pat.– She gave Pat the account.

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Passive (6.5)

• Which linking is chosen will influence what the passive version of the verb is.

• What is the passive version of The professor sent the answer to the student?

• What is the passive version of The professor sent the student the answer?

• Do not add or subtract the preposition to when you determine the passive version.

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Linking Alternations Latin

• Latin

Populus Ciceroni immortalitatem donavit.

People:NOM Cicero:DAT immortality:ACC gave:3pl

‘The people gave immortality to Cicero.’

Populus Ciceronem immortalitate donavit.

People:NOM Cicero:ACC immortality:ABL gave:3pl

‘The people endowed Cicero with immortality.’

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Latin Linking: Passive• Two possibilities for passive in Latin

Immortalitas est donatus Ciceroni Immortality:NOM is given:masc:sg Cicero: DAT ab populo.by people:ABL‘Immortality was given to Cicero by the people.’

Cicero est donatus immortalitate Cicero:NOM is given:masc:sg immortality:ABL

ab populo.by people:ABL‘Cicero was endowed with immortality by the people.’

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Recent Inquiries into the Flexibility of Verb Meaning

• Does the number of semantic roles assigned by a given verb always remain the same?

• Can speakers use constructions to add semantic roles to the verb?

• We can answer these questions by looking at naturally occurring language data.

• In many genres, we find creative uses of verbs.

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More Examples of Flexible Verb Meanings

• The Presentational Construction– Normal: On the ground lay a shoe.– New: Near the clubhouse sparkles the community pool.

• The Caused Motion construction– Normal: She pushed the glass off the counter.– New: A gruff ‘police monk’ barked them back to work.

• The Directed Motion construction– Normal: She walked through the gate.– New: She squirmed through the fence posts.

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Even more Examples of Flexibility in Verb Meanings

The Ditransitive construction • I gave them a gift.• We adopted her a sister.• I hailed them a cab.

The Resultative construction• I made the table less wobbly.• They cried their eyes red.• I ate myself sick.

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A Recent Proposal

• Linking patterns exist independently of verbs and have meanings similar to those of verbs (transfer, causation)

• The patterns can modify verb meanings by adding semantic roles.

• These patterns can make verbs from nouns:I spread the bread with butter.I buttered the bread.