September 26, 2007
11-721: Grammars and Lexicons
Lori Levin
Behavioral Properties of Objects
• Passive voice
• Object creating rules
– Dative shift
– Applicatives
Passive Voice
• See handout on passives in several languages.
• Assume for a moment that Passivization is a
transformation
– A meaning-preserving tree-to-tree mapping
• Describe the Passive transformation for each
language on the handout.
• If the transformations are so different, why do we
call them all passives?
– What do they have in common?
Passive as a lexical rule
• Morphology (word formation)
– Rules for making new words out of old words
by adding affixes and making other changes.
– English Passive: make a past participle out of
a verb
• Lexical Mapping
– Find the role that links to OBJ for the active
verb. Link that role to SUBJ.
– Find the role that links to SUBJ for the active
verb. Link that role to OBL.
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!!!
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!!!
What about all the other stuff?
• Why does the patient come before the
verb in an English passive?
What about the other stuff?
• Why is an auxiliary verb inserted?
– English sentences must contain a tensed verb.
Participles are not tensed.
• Tensed verbs are present or past in English
–
–
–
–
He walks.
He walked.
She is smart.
She was smart.
– You can use a passive in a context that does not
require a tensed verb:
• Admired by her friends, Sue had no reason to be worry.
– Passive verb phrases can occur as complements to
other verbs:
• The car needs washed.
• He got arrested by the police.
• We had them arrested by the police.
Functions of Passives
• Discourse focus on a participant other than the
subject.
• Make the sentence impersonal
– unidentified agent
• Syntactic need for something other than the
agent to be the subject.
– See discussion of Malagasy, coming in a week or two.
• Other
– Express adversity in Japanese.
Object Creating Rules
• Dative shift
• Applicatives
Behavioral Test for Object
• The semantic role that is encoded as
object in the active sentence takes the
encoding of subject in the passive
sentence.
English Dative Shift
• Which noun phrase passes the test for
objecthood?
– The teacher gave some books to the
students.
– Some books were given to the students (by
the teacher).
– The teacher gave the students some books.
– The students were given some books (by the
teacher).
Dative Shift and Passive
Give< agent
SUBJ
Give< agent
SUBJ
Give< agent
OBL
Give< agent
OBL
theme
OBJ
theme
OBJ2
theme
SUBJ
theme
OBJ2
goal >
OBL
goal >
OBJ
goal >
OBL
goal >
SUBJ
Other alternations in English
• The committee awarded the prize to Sue.
• The committee awarded her the prize.
• Sam sprayed the wall with paint.
• Sam sprayed paint on the wall.
• Sam loaded the truck with hay.
• Sam loaded hay onto the truck.
Applicative Constructions
• Morphology:
– An affix is added to the verb.
• Lexical mapping
– A recipient, benefactive, locative, or
instrumental is linked to OBJ
– The role that was linked to OBJ for the non
applicative verb is linked to OBJ2 (usually).
Applicative Constructions in
Chichewa
• See handout from Kroeger’s book.