September 19, 2007
11-721: Grammars and Lexicons
Lori Levin
Roles of Noun Phrases
• Semantic Roles
• Grammatical Relations
• Pragmatic Relations
Grammatical Relations
• Subject
– Sam interviewed Sue.
– Sue was interviewed by Sam.
• Object
– Sam interviewed Sue.
– Sam gave Sue a book.
• Oblique
– Sam talked with Sue.
– Sam presented a book to Sue.
– Sam walked along the river.
• Second object
– Same gave Sue a book.
– Think of this as an “unemployed” object.
• Perlmutter and Postal, Relational Grammar
Indirect Object
Not a grammatical Relation?
Sam (agent, subject)
gave
Sue (recipient, object)
a book (theme, second object)
Sam (agent, subject)
gave
a book (theme, object)
to Sue (recipient, oblique)
Grammatical Relations
• Coding Properties
• Behavioral Properties
How to understand an English Sentence
[s [np Sam] [vp interviewed [np Sue ]]]
SUBJ
agent
PRED
SUBJ
S
SUBJ
grammatical rlns.
interview patient
interview< agent
NP
OBJ
patient >
semantic roles
lexical mapping
OBJ
Encoding of
VP
VP
V
constituent structure
NP
OBJ
V
PP
OBL
Gml. Rlns.
For English!!!
How to understand an English Sentence
[s [np Sue] [vp was interviewed [np by Sam ]]]
SUBJ
PRED
patient
interview
interview< agent
OBL
S
NP
SUBJ
OBL
semantic roles
lexical mapping
SUBJ
VP
VP
V
grammatical rlns.
agent
patient >
constituent str.
NP
OBJ
V
PP
OBL
Encoding of
Gml. Rlns.
For English!!!
English:
Grammatical relations encoded by word order
The cat chases the dogs.
The cats chase the dog.
What does this mean?
*The cats chases the dog.
Italian: grammatical relations encoded by
verb agreement
Il gatto insegue i cani. I gatti inseguono il cane.
cat-sg chase-3sg dog-pl cat-pl chase-3pl dog-sg
Insegue il gatto i cani. Il cane inseguono i gatti.
What does this mean?
Il gatto inseguono i cani.
Encoding of Grammatical Relations
• Brian MacWhinney: Competition Model
• Word order and agreement compete for
encoding of grammatical relations.
• Word order is stronger in English
• Agreement is stronger in Italian.
Coding Properties of Grammatical
Relations
• Agreement
• Word order
• Case marking
• See handout from Van Valin, Chapter 2
Ergative, Absolutive, Nominative,
and Accusative
The man planted the seeds.
A
0
The man eats meat.
A
0
The man sleeps.
S
The man yawns.
S
A = subject of
transitive verb
O = object of
transitive verb
S = single argument
of intransitive verb
Nominative and Accusative
•
•
•
•
•
He planted the seeds.
He eats meat.
He sleeps.
He yawns.
Sam saw him.
Nominative:
A and S
have the same
form.
Accusative:
O is different
from A and S.
Ergative and Absolutive
Burushaski, (isolate -- not related to any other known
languages, Pakistan), from Manning, Ergativity
Ne
hír-e
phaló
the.MASC man-ERG seed.PL.ABS
The man planted the seeds.
bók-i.
sow-3SG.MASC.S
Ne
hír
yált-i.
the.MASC man.ABS yawn.PRET-3SG.MASC.S
The man yawned.
Ergative: -e, on A only
Absolutive: no suffix on S and O
Ergative and Absolutive
Greenlandic Eskimo, (Manning, Ergativity)
Oli-p neqi
neri-vaa
Oli-ERG meat.ABS eat-IND.TR.3SG.3SG
Oli eats meat.
Oli
sinippoq
Oli.ABS
sleep-IND.INTR.3SG
Oli sleeps.
Ergative: -p, on A only
Absolutive: no suffix on S and O
Unmarked Cases
• Nominative (A, S) and Absolutive (S, O) are
unmarked in many languages.
– There is no suffix, prefix, particle, etc.
• Why are some cases unmarked?
– If you need to tell the difference between two things (A
and O), you only need to mark one of them.
– Accusative: O is marked.
– Ergative: A is marked.
– If there is only an S, it doesn’t need to be marked
because it doesn’t need to be distinguished from
anything.
Behavioral properties of
grammatical relations
• Behavioral property 1: Reflexive Pronouns
• Reflexive pronouns:
– Myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself,
ourselves, yourselves, themselves
• Regular pronouns:
– I, me, you, he, she, him, her, it, we, us, they,
them
• Antecedent: The noun phrase that the
pronoun refers to.
– Sue thinks that Sam saw her.
Reflexive Pronouns in English
• James(i) saw himself(i).
– Antecedent is subject.
• James(i) told Miriam(j) about himself(i).
– Antecedent is subject.
• James(i) told Miriam(j) about herself(j).
– Antecedent is direct object.
• Miriam(j) talked to/with Sam(i) about himself(i).
– Antecedent is oblique (prepositional phrase).
Reflexive Pronouns in Norwegian
• Reflexive pronoun #1:
– Jon(i) fortalte meg om seg selv(i).
John told
me
about himself.
(Antecedent is subject.)
– *Vi fortalte Jon(i) om
seg selv(i).
We told
John about himself.
Antecedent must be the subject.
Reflexive Pronouns in Norwegian
• Reflexive pronoun #2:
– *Jon(i) snakker om
ham selv(i).
John talks
about himself.
(Antecedent is subject.)
– Vi fortalte Jon(i) om
ham selv(i).
We told
John about himself.
Antecedent cannot be the subject.