Grammars and Lexicons Part II:
Language typology: the common
building blocks and how they are
put together differently
The building blocks
• Grammatical Relations – subject and
object
• Semantic Roles – agent and patient
• Case marking – nominative and
accusative
• Word order
• Given information (what the previous
sentence was about) and new information
The building blocks
– What is Sam eating?
– He is eating chocolate cake.
• He is subject, agent, pre-verbal noun, given
information, and nominative pronoun.
• This is the prototypical situation.
• If all sentences were like this, we wouldn’t need
to learn the difference between subject, agent,
pre-verbal noun (or other word order position),
given information, and nominative case.
The building blocks
– What happened to Bill?
– He was beat up by Sam.
• He is the subject, is in pre-verbal position,
is given information, and is in nominative
case, but is not the agent.
– What did Sam do?
– I believe him to have eaten the cake.
• Him is the agent of eat, but is not in
nominative case.
Building block 1: Semantic Roles
• From Fillmore and Kay, lecture notes, Chapter 4:
– The children devoured the spaghetti.
– *The children devoured.
– *The children devoured the spaghetti the cheese.
– She handed the baby a toy.
– *She handed the baby.
– *She handed the toy.
– Problems exist.
– *Problems exist more problems.
Valency
• (Linguists took this term from chemistry –
how many electrons are missing from the
outer shell.)
Valency
• Verbs (and sometimes nouns and adjectives) describe
events, states, and relations that have a certain number
of participants.
• Devouring generally involves two participants.
• Handing generally involves three particpants.
• Existing generally involves one participant.
• The number of participants is called the verb’s valence
or valency.
– Devour has a valency of two.
– Hand has a valency of three.
– Exist has a valency of one.
• The participants are referred to as arguments of the
verb. (Like arguments of a function.)
Subcategorization:
Remember this word
• Verbs are divided into subcategories that have
different valencies.
• Here is how the terminology works:
• Exist, devour, and hand have different
subcategorizations.
• Devour subcategorizes for a subject and a direct
object.
• Devour is subcategorized for a subject and a
direct object.
• Devour takes two arguments, a subject and a
direct object (or an agent and a patient).
Subcategorization Frames
• A subcategorization frame is a template for filling
in the verb’s arguments.
• Subcategorization frames are represented
differently in different linguistic theories.
• In this class we will follow Lexical Functional
Grammar.
• Subcategorization frames consist of a list of
semantic roles and grammatical relations:
– Exist < theme/subject>
– Devour < agent/subject, patient/object >
– Hand < agent/subject, theme/object, recipient/oblique >
Arguments are not always Noun
Phrases
• The italicized phrases are also arguments:
– He looked pale.
– The solution turned red.
– I want to go.
– He started singing a song.
– We drove to New York.
Optional and Obligatory Arguments
• The children ate.
• The children ate cake.
– Patient/theme argument is optional
• *The children devoured.
• The children devoured the cake.
– Patient/theme argument is not optional
•
•
•
•
The dog ran.
The dog ran from the house.
The dog ran to the creek.
The dog ran from the house to the creek through
the garden along the path.
Complements:
Remember this word
• Arguments are sometimes called complements
of the verb.
• However, just to confuse you, the word
complement also refers to complement clauses
– embedded clauses that are arguments of a
verb.
– Examples of complement clauses:
•
•
•
•
The children think that the book is interesting.
The children told the teacher that the book is interesting.
The children want to read the book.
The children expect the teacher to read the book.
Motivation for the existence of
Semantic Roles
–
–
–
–
John opened the door with a key.
The key opened the door.
The door opened.
The door was opened by John with a key.
• Semantic roles explain what the meanings of these
sentences have in common even though their
grammatical relations and subcategorization frames are
different.
• The key fills the instrument role, whether it is the subject
of the sentence or a prepositional phrase.
• John fills the agent role, whether he is the subject or in a
prepositional phrase.
• The door fills the theme or patient role, whether it is a
subject or direct object.
Semantic Roles are different from
Grammatical Relations
• Subjects that are not agents:
– The clothes were washed by the woman.
– The clock broke.
– The rock shattered the window.
– The window shattered.
– The ship sank.
– The students received awards.
Examples of Semantic Roles
• Agent: an agent acts volitionally or
intentionally
– The students worked.
– Sue baked a cake.
Examples of Semantic Roles
• Experiencer and Stimulus: An experiencer is
an animate being that perceives something or
experiences an emotion. The stimulus is the
thing that the experiencer perceives or the thing
that caused the emotional response.
– The students like linguistics.
• (emoter and stimulus)
– The students saw a linguist.
• (perceiver and stimulus)
– Linguistics frightens the students.
• (emoter and stimulus)
– The students thought about linguistics.
• (cognizer and stimulus)
A test for agent vs. experiencer
• What did the boy do?
– He kicked the ball.
• agent
– He ran to school.
• agent
– #He saw a fox.
• Experiencer/perceiver
– #He knew the answer.
• Experiencer/cognizer
– #He loved his teacher.
• Experiencer/emoter
• # means inappropriate in this context.
Examples of Semantic Roles
• Patient: A patient is affected by an action.
– Sam kicked the ball.
– Sue cut the cake.
• Beneficiary: A beneficiary benefits from an event
– Sue baked a cake for Sam.
– Sue baked Sam a cake.
• Malefactive: Someone is affected adversely by an
event.
– My dog died on me.
• Instrument:
– The boy opened the door with a key.
– The key opened the door.
Semantic Roles for Directed
Motion: Ray Jackendoff
• Theme: changes location, is located
somewhere, or exists
• Source: the starting point of the motion.
• Goal: the ending point of the motion.
• Path: the path of the motion.
Examples of Location and Directed
Motion
• Many problems still exist.
• The clock sits on the shelf.
• The ball rolled from the door to the window
along the wall.
• Same walked from his house to town
along the river.
• Sue rolled across the room.
• The car turned into the driveway.
Being in a state or changing state
•
•
•
•
•
•
The car is red.
The ice cream melted.
The glass broke.
Sam broke the glass.
The paper turned from red to green.
The fairy godmother turned the pumpkin
into a coach.
Having or Changing possession
• The teacher gave books to the students.
• The teacher gave the students books.
• The students have books.
Exchange of Information
• The teacher told a story to the students.
• The teacher told the students a story.
Extent
• The road extends/runs along the river from
the school to the mall.
• The string reaches the wall.
• The string reaches across the room to the
wall.
Problems with Semantic Roles
• The definitions are vague:
– If themes are things that moved, is his hand a theme in John
moved his hand?
• Linguists keep making up new role names without proper
motivation. Proper motivation would be a test.
• Linguists keep writing about the same small set of verbs
that have clearly identified roles. Many roles are not
clearly covered. (Fillmore and Kay, pages 4-22)
– He risked death.
– We resisted the enemy.
– She resembles her mother.
Predicate-Specific Role Names
• It is ok to use predicate-specific role
names when you want to avoid the
vagueness of semantic role names.
– E.g., devourer and devouree
• See Van Valin pages 25-26.
Adjuncts
• Locations, times, adverbs, and other things that
can go with almost any sentences are called
adjuncts.
– The children ate the cake quickly at 2:00 in the
kitchen.
• Predicates specify how many arguments they
take and also specify the grammatical functions,
semantic roles, and case markings of their
arguments.
• Predicates do not specify the semantic roles,
grammatical functions, or case markings of
adjuncts.
How to tell arguments from
adjuncts
• There are some general guidelines that are not
always conclusive.
• Adjuncts are always optional.
• (but some arguments are optional too)
• Repeatability:
– The children devoured the cake at 2:00 on Monday.
(Two temporal adjuncts)
– The children devoured the cake in Pittsburgh in a
restaurant. (Two locative adjuncts)
– *The children devoured the cake the dessert.
(arguments are not repeatable)