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Theta Roles: Presented by Zhen Jia, Liu Aifang, Li Shaohua MA (English Literature) 04

The document discusses theta roles and theta theory. It defines several common theta roles including agent, theme, experiencer, benefactive, recipient, instrument, locative, goal, and source. It provides examples of how verbs assign these theta roles to their arguments. The document also discusses the relationship between grammatical systems, semantic descriptions, and phonetic descriptions in forming sentences.

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Zameer Nawaz
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38 views

Theta Roles: Presented by Zhen Jia, Liu Aifang, Li Shaohua MA (English Literature) 04

The document discusses theta roles and theta theory. It defines several common theta roles including agent, theme, experiencer, benefactive, recipient, instrument, locative, goal, and source. It provides examples of how verbs assign these theta roles to their arguments. The document also discusses the relationship between grammatical systems, semantic descriptions, and phonetic descriptions in forming sentences.

Uploaded by

Zameer Nawaz
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Theta Roles

Presented by Zhen Jia, Liu Aifang,


Li Shaohua
MA (English literature) 04
Theta Theory
 Theta Theory is concerned with
assigning thematic roles to the
arguments of verbs.
Theta Roles
 Agent e.g. John threw the ball.
 Theme e.g. John hit the cat.
The cat died.
 Experiencer e.g. John was happy.
 Benefactive e.g. Mary bought some chocolate for
John.
 Recipient e.g. John got Mary a present.
 Instrument e.g. Joanna dug the garden
with a spade.
 Locative e.g. John put the washing in the bin.
 Goal e.g. Mary passed the plate to John.
 Source e.g. John returned from London.
 The vase shattered the glass. (instrument)
 The vase shattered. (theme)
From proposition to sentence
grammatical system semantic description

like (john, the book) John likes the book.

bivalent external internal phonetic description


Verb argument argument
V experiencer theme John likes the book.
Dichotomy between the phonetic description
and the semantic description

grammatical system semantic description


agent theme in context 1:
perf. (鸡 null ) 鸡不吃（饲料）了
吃 neg. in context 2:
(null 鸡） 鸡（我们）不吃了
phonetic description
鸡
不吃了

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