CAS LX 502
Semantics
4a. Events and Theta roles
3.5, 4.4 (8.1, 8.2)
Situations
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We can think of sentences as referring to
situations (events, states, eventualities).
A sentence like Pat opened the door can
be thought of as meaning
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‘There is an event, it is an opening, it affects the door,
and it is instigated by Pat.’
In understanding the details of our
interpretive system, reference to
events/situations can prove useful.
Tense
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Events take place in time, and language
uses tense to situate events in time.
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Pat sang the national anthem.
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Pat will sing the national anthem.
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(The singing event was in the past—before now)
(The singing event is in the future—after now)
Pat is singing the national anthem.
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(The singing event is now)
Now
Situation types
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States: static and unchanging
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Individual-level:
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Stage-level:
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Pat is tall.
Pat knows French.
Pat is hungry.
Pat is bored.
Events: dynamic, involving motion/change
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Pat is pushing the cart into the corner.
Tense vs. aspect
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Tense locates a situation in time, aspect describes
the internal temporal structure of the situation.
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Completed (perfect)
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Pat had eaten a sandwich.
Pat has eaten a sandwich.
Pat will have eaten a sandwich.
Ongoing (progressive)
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Pat was eating a sandwich.
Pat is eating a sandwich.
Pat will be eating a sandwich.
Classifying situations
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States (want, love, hate, know, believe)
Activities (run, walk, swim, push a cart)
Accomplishments (run a mile, walk to the
store, paint a picture, draw a circle)
Achievements (recognize, find, stop, reach
the top)
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Semelfactives (cough, knock) (don’t change state)
Classifying situations
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The different situation types essentially
define the different kinds of “shadow” the
situation casts on the timeline.
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Point: Part of our semantic knowledge includes
knowledge about situations/events.
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We will return to a more detailed discussion of tense and
aspect and event structure later in the course.
Roles in an event
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Pat pushed the cart into the corner with a
stick.
This sentence describes an event, tying
together several participants:
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The event is a pushing event
Pat is the instigator of the event
The cart is affected (moved) during the event
The corner marks the endpoint of the path
A stick is the instrument used to effect the movement
Thematic roles
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Agent: initiator, capable of acting with volition
Patient: entity undergoing change
Theme: entity moved or located
Experiencer: Aware of event, but not in control
Beneficiary: Entity for whose benefit the event
occurs
Instrument: Means by which event comes about
Location: Place in which event occurs
Goal: Entity/place toward which something
moves
Source: Entity/place from which something
moves
thematic roles (q-grids)
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Among the pieces of information
stored in our mental lexicon about
predicates is the q-grid of a predicate.
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The predicate names a kind of event, and
specifies what entities play a role in the event.
put V: <Agent, Theme, Location>
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Pat put the book on the table.
q-grids
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put V: <Agent, Theme, Location>
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Pat put the book on the table.
Conventionally, only required q-roles are
listed in the q-roles. That is, q-roles that are
necessary in specifying the event.
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*Pat put on the table.
*Pat put the book.
Pat put the book on the table with a spatula.
Arguments and adjuncts
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An argument is required by the q-grid.
An adjunct is superfluous, less connected to the
event, freer in ordering. Can be added to further
specify any kind of compatible event.
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*Pat put the fork.
Pat put the fork on the table.
Pat put the fork on the table with gusto at 6pm.
Pat put the fork on the table at 6pm with gusto.
With gusto, Pat put the fork on the table at 6pm.
*Pat put the fork at 6pm with gusto on the table.
*On the table, Pat put the fork at 6pm with gusto.
Classes of verbs
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We can classify verbs by the number of qroles in their q-grids.
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Intransitive: trip <Theme>
Transitive: kick <Agent, Patient>
Ditransitive: put <Agent, Theme, Location>
Atransitive: rain < >
Sort of.
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The baby kicked, Pat tripped Tracy, Chris read (the
book). It’s more complicated than it seems.
Classes of verbs
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Even apart from valency (number of arguments in
the q-grid), we can identify lots of classes of verbs
that behave alike in terms of q-roles.
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give, lend, supply, pay, donate, contribute
V: <Agent, Theme, Recipient>
receive, accept, borrow, buy, purchase, rent, hire
V:<Recipient, Theme, Source>
break, open, sink, collapse
V: <Patient>
V: <Agent, Patient>
eat, drink, read, paint
V: <Agent>
V: <Agent, Patient>
What are the q-roles?
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How do we know that the list of q-roles we have is
right?
We don’t.
We can group q-roles in various ways, or
subdivide them. The question is what provides the
greatest insight to linguistic structure.
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The rock frightens Pat.
Pat frightens the rock.
The car ran over the nail in the road.
Theme = Patient? Recipient = Goal = Beneficiary? Does it
matter?
Actor vs. Agent?
Malicious Agent vs. Benevolent Agent?
Can an argument get more than
one thematic role/q-role?
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Yes.
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(e.g., Jackendoff) Pat: Agent, Source; the ball:
Patient, Theme; Tracy: Goal.
No.
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Pat threw the ball to Tracy.
(e.g., Chomsky) q-roles can contain more than one qrelation, but it is linguistically one role (bundle of qrelations). Pat [Agent, Source].
Depends on what generalization is most
useful in predicting things. Seems likely that
the second one is better by that measure.
Subjects and objects
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We can identify parts of sentences as subjects,
predicates, objects.
Often these are defined by position and by case.
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I met her. She met me.
Grammatical roles and q-roles are dissociable.
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Pat closed the door.
The door closed.
Linking
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Almost any q-role can be a structural
subject.
Chris planned the heist.
 Tracy saw the crime occur.
 The window broke.
 The hammer smashed the glass.
 Chris tripped.
 Chris got a summons.
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Linking
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There are tendencies at least.
If there’s an Agent, it is the subject.
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Otherwise, if there’s an instrument, it is the subject.
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The exam failed Pat.
The hammer broke the vase.
Otherwise, if there’s a Theme or Patient, it is the
subject.
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The vase broke.
*The vase broke with the hammer.
Linking hierarchies
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Determining which q-role is the subject?
Agent/Experiencer > Instrument >
Theme/Patient
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Pat broke the vase on Tuesday with a hammer.
The hammer broke the vase on Tuesday.
The vase broke on Tuesday (*with a hammer)
The dog ate my homework.
My homework was eaten (by the dog).
Tracy was given my homework.
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*A fork was eaten my homework.
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Why q-roles?
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We are trying to describe generalizations
about language, meaning, the mapping to
structure.
We can imagine a lot of different kinds of
roles. E.g., Patient could undergo a lot of
different degrees of affectedness
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Touch (no change)
Squeeze (temporary change)
Break (fundamental change)
Dowty on q-roles
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Fine-grain: q-roles are really collections of
entailments. E.g., “does a volitional act”,
“with intent”, “moves or changes
externally.” Many verbs share this entailment
with their most prominent argument
(“Agent”).
Course-grain: There are only these
collections of q-roles, of two kinds (ProtoAgent, Proto-Patient). Which collection
plays the more prominent role depends on
the constitution of the collection (relatively).
Proto-Agent, Proto-Patient
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Proto-Agent
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Proto-Patient
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Volitional involvement
Sentience/perception
Causing event or change of state in another participant
Movement relative to another participant
Undergoes change of state
Incremental theme
Causally affected by another participant
Stationary relative to another participant
Agent is a prototypical Proto-Agent. Experiencer,
less so, Instrument less so. Patient is a prototypical
Proto-Patient, Beneficiary less so.
Why q-roles?
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We get some generalization power by
considering q-roles, allowing us to define
classes of verbs that share similar behavior.
As an example, psychological verbs
(admire, enjoy, amuse, frighten), which
have an Experiencer and a Stimulus (or
Percept).
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Two types, differing in the linking of arguments to
syntactic positions.
Point here: we need to refer to q-roles to differentiate
the two types.
Psych verbs
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Type 1 (Subject-experiencer)
admire, enjoy, fear, like, love, relish, savor
 V: <Experiencer, Stimulus>
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Type 2 (Object-experiencer)
amuse, entertain, frighten, interest, please,
surprise, thrill
 V: <Stimulus, Experiencer>
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q-roles and language
description
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Saeed (in another Semantics textbook)
gives the example of Lakhota, which
morphologically marks Patient and
Agent (hence we need the concepts
to adequately describe the
language).
Agent subjects or objects wa Patient subjects or objects ma
Active vs. Passive (Voice)
Pat ate the sandwich
 The sandwich was eaten (by Pat)
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Passive “demotes” the Agent/Experiencer,
promoting the next q-role to subject.
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eat
V: <Agent, Patient>
eaten V: <Patient>
(active)
(passive)
The book was given to Pat.
(theme)
 Pat was given a book.
(recipient)
 The shot was heard ’round the world.
(percept)
 The kids were frightened.
(experiencer)
 The ghost was feared.
(stimulus)
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Passive
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Generally, only the highest argument can be
promoted to subject position in the passive.
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He sprayed paint on the wall. He sprayed the wall with paint.
Paint was sprayed on the wall. The wall was sprayed with
paint.
*The wall was sprayed paint on. *Paint was sprayed the wall
with.
He loaded hay onto the truck. He loaded the truck with hay.
Hay was loaded onto the truck. The truck was loaded with
hay.
*The truck was loaded hay onto. *Hay was loaded the truck
with.
He gave a book to Mary. He gave Mary a book.
A book was given to Mary. Mary was given a book.
*Mary was given a book to. *A book was given Mary.
Passive usage
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Passives are often useful to “background”
the subject (either to total omission or at
least to a less prominent role).
Pat took a trip to Providence yesterday.
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The police arrested him.
He was arrested by the police.
He sprayed the car with paint.
#The car was sprayed with paint.
Middles
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Middles are sort of like passives: the
Agent/Experiencer is suppressed and the
next q-role is promoted to subject. The verb
does not take on a passive form (in English),
and the construction is generally only
available to describe a degree of “success”:
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Pat broke the calculator.
The calculator was broken.
This calculator breaks easily.
Adverbs
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How might we describe the meaning
of an adverb? Say, loudly.
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The hooligan shouted loudly.
Well, it seems a bit like this:
There was a shouting event.
 The hooligan was the Agent of that event.
 It was a loud event.
 Adverbs seem to modify events
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Adverb(-like thing)s as event
modifiers
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The hooligan shouted loudly on Saturday
atop the bench by the tree in the rain.
This asserts the existence of an event that:
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Is a shouting
Has the hooligan as Agent
Is loud
Is on Saturday
Is atop the bench
Is by the tree
Is in the rain
Great for manner and temporal adverbs.
Subject-oriented adverbs
Zinédine intentionally hit Marco.
 Marco was intentionally hit by Zinédine.
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It’s not the whole event that is
intentional, it is somehow related to
one of the participants. The subject?
Well, yes. The Agent? Maybe.
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That second one seems a bit ambiguous
Speaker-oriented adverbs
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Annoyingly, Pat was late.
Predictably, Pat (stupidly) answered
the questions (brilliantly)
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