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Chapter 6 - Resumen Semantics

Semántica Inglesa (UNED)

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Chapter 6

Sentence Semantics 2: Participants

6.1 Introduction: Classifying Participants

Chapter 5: aspects of sentence-level semantics: how speakers may choose to

characterize situations and express various degrees of commitment to the portrayal.

We examine some semantic options through which speakers may characterize (label)
the entities involved in a given situation.  the way participants may be assigned
semantic roles relative to the action or situation described by the verb. We begin with
the notion of thematic roles.

Gina raised the car with a jack

This sentence identifies an event with three entities. Gina (entity responsible for
initiating and carrying out the action), the car (acted upon han has its position changed
by the action), and a jack (the means by which Gina is able to cause the action), related
by the action described by the verb raise. We can describe the thematic roles by calling
Gina the AGENT of the action, the car the THEME, and a jack the INSTRUMENT.

Gina raised the car with a jack

Gina, the car, a jack = entities = participants = semantic roles = thematic roles.
Gina = it initiates and carries the action = AGENT
the car = it is acted upon and has its position changed by the action = THEME
the jack = means by which Gina is able to cause the action = INSTRUMENT
raised = event
A term used to express the role that a noun phrase (role-bearing nominal) plays with
respect to the action or state described by a sentence's verb. For example, in the
sentence "Susan ate an apple", Susan is the doer of the eating, so she is an agent; the
apple is the item that is eaten, so it is a patient. The general term, as well as the terms
for specific relations, varies; 'participant role', 'semantic role', 'deep case' 'thematic
relation'.

6.2 Thematic Roles

AGENT: the initiator of some action, capable of acting with volition, deliberately
performing the action, e.g., Paco studied hard for the exam

David cooked the rashes

The fox jumped out the ditch.

PATIENT: the entity undergoing the effect of some action, often undergoing some
change in state, e.g., The sun melted the ice The falling rocks crushed the car

Enda cut back these bushes

The sun melted the ice

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Jackendoff (1972) test for AGENT

The AGENT displays animacy and volition (own will). e.g. a person/animate entity with
own will to carry an action.

Some writers have suggested that AGENT is a particular type of a more general
thematic role ACTOR, where ACTOR “expresses the participant which performs,
effects, instigates, or controls the situation denoted by the predicate”. So every AGENT
is an ACTOR, but not the other way round: the car is an ACTOR but not an AGENT
since it presumably is neither in possession of a wish to kill nor animate:

The car ran over the hedgehog

Jackendoff (1990) distinction AGENT (ACTOR)/ PATIENT

For ACTOR

For PATIENT

Robert (ACTOR) snapped the golf club (PATIENT) in half. snap “break with noise”

What did Robert do? - What Robert did was to snap the golf club in half.

a. What happened to the golf club was that Robert snapped it in half.

b. What Robert did to the golf club was snap it in half.

THEME: the entity which is moved by an action, or whose location is described;

undergoes the action but does not change its state e.g.,

Roberto passed the ball wide

The book is in the library

EXPERIENCER: the entity which is aware of the action or state described by the
predicate but is not in control of the action or stage. S/he receives sensory or emotional
input, e.g., My dog fell ill I heard the tolling bells

Kevin felt ill

Mary saw the smoke
Lorcan heard the door shut

BENEFICIARY: the entity for whose benefit the action was performed, e.g., the soldier
fights for his country My mother baked me a cake.

Robert filled in the form for his grandmother

They baked me a cake

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INSTRUMENT: the means by which an action is performed or something comes about,

e.g., the Baron cut the lock with a pair of scissors She convinced me with a kiss

She cleaned the wound with an antiseptic wipe

They signed the treaty with the same pen

LOCATION: the place in which something is situated or takes place, e.g., I'll be at
Julie's house studying for my test The cat was hidding under the bed

The monster was hiding under the bed

The band played in a marquee

GOAL: the entity toward which something moves, either literally or metaphorically. He
walked to school Sheila handed the exam to the tutor

Sheila handed her license to the policeman literally

Pat told the joke to his friends metaphorically

SOURCE: the entity from which something moves, e.g.,

She walked away from his boyfriend Patt came back from the gym

The plane came back from Kinshasa

We got the idea from a French magazine

PERCEPT/STIMULUS: the entity causing an effect (usually psychological) in the

EXPERIENCER, it prompts sensory or emotional feeling - not deliberately e.g.

John didn't like the cool breeze

The noise frightened the passengers

Distinction PATIENT/THEME

PATIENT is reserved for entities acted upon and changed by the verb‟s action.

THEME describes an entity moved in literal or figurative space by the action of the
verb, but constitutionally unchanged.

Fred shattered the rock --> PATIENT shatter “break in pieces”

Fred threw the rock --> THEME

FORCE: sometimes used for an inanimate entity that causes something, for example,
The wind flattened her hair The child was weakened by fever

The wind flattened the crops

The sea wall was weakened by the waves

RECIPIENT: a type of GOAL involved in actions describing changes of possession,

e.g., I sent John the letter He gave the book to her

He sold me this wreck

He left his fortune to the church

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A central claim of Chomsky's Principles and Parameters theory, for example, is the
Theta-Criterion, which states that there must be a one-to-one correspondence between
noun phrases and thematic roles. Jackendoff (1972), suggested the idea that one nominal
might fulfill more than one role, elaborated into a theory of tiers of thematic roles: a
thematic tier, which describes spatial relations, and an action tier, which describes
ACTOR–PATIENT type relations.

Fred in 6.40 A, is simultaneously the GOAL and the PATIENT of the action. Thus the
room in 6.40 C, has no role in the action tier. Presumably these tiers would divide
thematic roles into two types:

Having identified these thematic roles, the next question we might ask is: how are such
roles identified in the grammar? For the English examples above, is by a combination of
syntactic structure and choice of verb.

6.3 Grammatical Relations and Thematic Roles

In English there is a tendency for subjects to be AGENTS, direct objects to be

PATIENTS and THEMES, and INSTRUMENTS to occur as prepositional phrases, but
this need not always be the case, as in these two basic situations: the first is thematic
role omission, where roles are simply omitted, and the grammatical relations shift to
react to this; and the second is where the speaker chooses to alter the usual matching
between roles and grammatical relations, a choice often marked by an accompanying
change of verbal voice.

There are typical matching between participant roles and grammatical relations.

Subject = AGENT

Direct Object (Od) = THEME

Prepositional Phrase (PP) = INSTRUMENT

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Thematic role omission

Ursula broke the ice with a pickaxe Ursula is the AGENT and subject, the ice is a
PATIENT and direct object, and the pickaxe,
the INSTRUMENT, is in a prepositional
phrase.

The pickaxe broke the ice The AGENT is omitted and now the
INSTRUMENT expressed, the PATIENT
becomes subject. The verb break, allows all
three thematic roles to occupy subject position
Subject = INSTRUMENT
The ice broke Subject = PATIENT

This process of different roles occupying the subject position is a hierarchical process
across many languages. When speakers are constructing a sentence, they tend to place
an AGENT into subject position, the next preference being for a RECIPIENT or
BENEFICIARY, then THEME/PATIENT, then other roles. INSTRUMENT is
preferred to LOCATION. This is sometimes described as an implicational hierarchy.

Other position on the hierarchy occur regularly:

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6.4 Verbs and Thematic Role Grids

Verbs have particular requirements for their thematic roles. Thus we need to know not
only how many arguments a verb requires (i.e. whether it is intransitive, transitive, etc.)
but also what thematic roles its arguments may hold.

In generative grammar, this listing of thematic roles is often called a thematic role
grid, or theta-grid. A simple example might be:

This entry tells us that put is a three-argument, or ditransitive, verb and spells out the
thematic roles the three arguments may carry. The AGENT-role typically occurs as the
subject of the verb “external argument”. Our thematic grid for put in predicts that this
verb, when saturated with the correct arguments, might form a sentence like:

Distinction Arguments/Non-arguments

[SRoland [VPput [NPthe book] [PPin the bathroom]]] --> PP = LocC --> Argument

[SRoland [VPread [NPthe book] [PPin the bathroom]]] --> PP = adjunct --> Non-argument. The
adjunct stays outside the argument structure of the verb read, which has only two
arguments.

Adjunts, not being required by the verb, are seen as less structurally attached to the verb.

Of course, not all nominals in a sentence are arguments of a verb.

Grammatical status of arguments and adjuncts.

All verbs may co-occur with adjuncts (usually adverbials of time, place, manner, etc.)
and requirements need only be listed in the lexicon for arguments.

Another way of making this distinction is to distinguish between participant roles,

which correspond to our arguments: they are needed by the predication; and non-
participant roles, optional adjuncts which give extra information about the context,
typically info about the time, location, purpose, or result of the event. Of course only
participant roles will be relevant to verbal thematic grids.

Verbs form classes which share the same grids. For example, English has a class of
TRANSFER, or GIVING, verbs which in one subclass includes the verbs give, lend,
supply, pay, donate, contribute. These verbs encode a view of the transfer from the
perspective of the AGENT. They have the thematic grid:

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Another subclass of these TRANSFER verbs encodes the transfer from the perspective
of the RECIPIENT. These verbs include receive, accept, borrow, buy, purchase, rent,
hire. Their thematic grid is:

Distinction participant/non-participant roles

Participant role = argument: they are needed by the predication

Non-participant role = non-argument: they are optional adjuncts which give extra
information about the context.

Only participant roles will be relevant to verbal thematic grids.

Verbs with the same grid, but different thematic role perspective.

V: <AGENT, THEME, RECIPIENT>

BarbaraAG loaned the moneyTH to MichaelRE A -----> B

V: < RECIPIENT, THEME, SOURCE>

MichaelRE borrowed the moneyTH from BarbaraSO. B -------> A

Thematic grids such as these are put to use in the literature for a variety of descriptive
jobs. What purpose do thematic roles serve in linguistic analysis?

6.5 Problems with Thematic Roles

Authors disagree with distinctions of PATIENT/THEME or AGENT/ACTOR/

EXPERIENCER. We can see these debates as reflections of two general problems with
thematic roles (usually abbreviated to “theta-roles,” or θ-roles).

The first problem is really about delimiting particular roles. If we lose the more
general role-types like AGENT, PATIENT… we cannot make general statement about
relations between semantic roles and grammatical relations.

Variation within the role type. Let us take the example of PATIENT in a typical grid:

The role of the INSTRUMENT vary between verb types.

The second problem is more general: how do we define theta-roles in general? That
is, what semantic basis do we have for characterizing roles? Facing both of these
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problems, theta-roles are defined in terms of entailments of the predicate. In this view a
theta-role is a cluster of entailments about an argument position, which are shared by
some verbs. Examples: x murders y, x nominates y, x interrogates y, where:

Such a set of shared entailments about x will serve to define the nominal which denotes
x as AGENT. Thus theta-roles are defined in terms of shared verbal entailments about
nominal referents.

Dowty proposes that we view the roles not as discrete and bounded categories but
instead as prototypes, where there may be different degrees of membership. Two basic
prototypes: Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient, each of which would contain characteristic
lists of entailments.

The idea is that these clusters of entailments would allow various kinds of shading. For
example some arguments might have more of the entailments than others.

John cleaned the house --> volition, sentience, causation, movement

John fainted and dropped the vase --> no-volition
The storm destroyed the house --> no-volition, no-sentience

This approach allows variation among AGENTs: some will be more typical and involve
a greater number of characteristic entailments; others will be more marginal. Similar
variation would hold for PATIENTs; and it also allows flexibility in defining thematic
roles.

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6.6 The Motivation for Identifying Thematic Roles

Linguists employ thematic roles to describe aspects of the interface (interrelation)

between semantics and syntax, to characterize the links between the semantic
classification of its participants inherent in a verb's meaning and the grammatical
relations it supports. Thus, when we use an English verb like feel in Joan felt the heat,
we identify a relationship between an EXPERIENCER and a PERCEPT (STIMULUS).
Grammatically of course the verb feel is transitive, taking a subject and direct object.

One fact that we have to account for is a conventional linkage between the participant
roles and the grammatical relations, such that in this case the EXPERIENCER will be
subject and the PERCEPT, direct object in the verb feel.

Functions of the thematic roles

1. Predicting such linkages is one of the primary functions of thematic roles. To

take one example, in Dowty's prototype and entailments approach, this linkage is
described by:

a. Argument Selection Principle: In predicates with grammatical subject and

object, the argument for which the predicate entails the greatest number of
Proto-Agent properties will be lexicalized as the subject of the predicate; the
argument having the greatest number of Proto-Patient entailments will be
lexicalized as the direct object.
b. Corollary 1: If two arguments of a relation have (approximately) equal
numbers of entailed Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient properties, then either or
both may be lexicalized as the subject (and similarly for objects).
c. Corollary 2: With a three-place predicate, the non-subject argument having
the greater number of entailed Proto- Patient properties will be lexicalized as
the direct object and the non-subject argument having fewer entailed Proto-
Patient properties will be lexicalized as an oblique or prepositional object.
d. Non-discreteness: Proto-roles do not classify arguments exhaustively (some
arguments have neither role) or uniquely (some arguments may share the
same role) or discretely (some arguments could qualify partially but equally
for both proto-roles).

Dowty intends these observations as a set of constraints on verbal linking rules. As the
term lexicalized suggests, these principles are viewed as constraints on possible verbs.

How such principles might work the relations between subject position and theta-roles
in the sentences?

a. In a Captain Nemo has the Proto-Agent properties of volition, sentience,

causation and movement and is thus linked to subject position, as predicted by
the selection principles.

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b. In b the torpedo has the Proto-Agent properties of causation and movement, and
thus, in the absence of an entity with a stronger cluster of such properties,
becomes subject.
c. Finally in c the ship has just the property of movement, but in this sentence that
is enough for it to become the subject.

This idea of stronger and weaker candidates for subject, and other grammatical roles,
leads naturally to the idea of a hierarchy. Dowty's version of a subject hierarchy is:

So far we have been talking about theta-roles as explanatory devices in accounting for
linkage between semantic and syntactic argument structure.

2. A second justification for using thematic roles is to help characterize semantic

verbal classes. For example we can identify in English two classes of
psychological verbs both of which take two arguments (i.e. are transitive), one of
which is an EXPERIENCER and the other a STIMULUS. The classes differ
however in their linking between these roles and subject and object position.

The first class has the theta-grid in 6.84a, and can be exemplified by the verbs in 6.84b,
while the second class has the theta-grid in 6.85 a and includes verbs li those in 6.85b:

Thus we say Claude liked the result but The result pleased Claude. Such classifications
of verbs can help predict the grammatical processes individual verbs will undergo.
Thus, though the motivation for grammatical rules is often multifactorial, theta-role
grids have been used to describe argument-changing processes like passive, or
argument structure alternations like in 6.86-7:

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The conditional factors for such alternations are often a mix of semantic information,
such as the verb's meaning and its theta-grid, and its syntactic environment.

We can look at one further type of justification for thematic roles which comes from
another area of grammar: the claim that in some languages they play a role in the
morphology of verbal agreement.

If we need theta-roles to explain morphological patterns, this is strong evidence that

they are significant semantic categories.

Summary: We have seen a number of different motivations for identifying thematic

roles: to explain linking rules in verbal argument structure, to reflect semantic classes of
verbs, to predict a verb's participation in argument structure alternations, and finally to
describe morphological rules adequately.

Summary
Different motivations for identifying thematic roles:
- to explain linking rules in verbal argument structure.
- to reflect semantic classes of verbs.
- to predi t a ver ’s parti ipatio i argu e t stru ture alter atio s.
- to describe morphological rules adequately.

6.7 Causation

We can see the importance of causation to thematic role selection if we look at the
English causative inchoative verb alternation. In this alternation the same verb can
occur in an intransitive form where the one argument is an entity undergoing a change
of state, or a transitive form which adds a causer role:

This pattern allows the speaker to either select or omit a causing entity. In terms of
thematic roles such verbs allow the cause to be an AGENT, a non-volitional cause (or
FORCE) 6.91., or an instrument 6.92.:

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NON-CAUSATIVE

CAUSATIVE

This type of alternation is very common across languages. In English, not all change of
state intransitives allow a corresponding transitive and the way round:
The fruit trees blossomed - the early spring blossomed the fruit trees*
The buyers demolished the house - The house demolished*
- Lexical causative: same form of the verb used in both alternants.
- These alternations and derivations show how speakers can signal their selections within
what some writers haved termed causal chain, which is an analysis of events as segments of
a causal network where individuals act on other individuals asymmetrically.

Here we are concerned with how the semantic frame for an event is profiled by the verb
and its thematic roles. Some writers have characterized the expression of causation in
language as a selective merging of sub-events: causal chain windowing describes the
speaker's portrayal of the sub-events. Thus a sentence like Joan broke the photocopier
focuses on the AGENT's responsibility for causing the event and on the result, the
broken photocopier, but misses out other intermediate information about the actions
involved. Speakers have a number of options in characterizing the connection between
these sub-events, for example in portraying the unity of the cause and effect between the
events.

Comparison inchoative - causative:

not completed --> it shows a process of beginning --> inchoative

causative
s

The versions in c and d are often termed periphrastic causatives because they employ
two verbs in a complex clause construction. The version with make in c suggests that
the speaker caused the car to stop in an unusual way or perhaps had to overcome
resistance, while d with have implies the presence of other implicit actors in the event.

6.8 Voice

6.8.1. Passive voice

The grammatical category of voice affords speakers some flexibility in viewing

thematic roles. Many languages allow an opposition between active voice and passive
voice. We can compare for example the English sentences:

a. Paco did all the work. b. All the work was done by Paco.

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In the active sentence Paco/Billy, the AGENT, is subject and all the work/The horses,
the PATIENT, is object. The passive version, however, has the PATIENT as subject
and the AGENT occurring in a prepositional phrase, the structure often associated with
INSTRUMENT. This is a typical active-passive voice alternation: the passive sentence
has a verb in a different form – the past participle with the auxiliary verb be – and it
allows the speaker a different perspective on the situation described. The passive
sentence allows the speaker to describe the situation from the point of view of the
PATIENT rather than that of the AGENT. In some cases indeed passive constructions
are used to obscure the identity of an AGENT, as in:

The horses were groomed. Here the AGENT is so far backgrounded that it becomes
merely an implied participant. Many writers describe this foregrounding of the
PATIENT and backgrounding of the AGENT in terms of topic prominence or as
reflecting the speaker's greater empathy with the PATIENT rather than the AGENT. For
example in 6.100 the alternation relies in part on the lexical relation between in front of
and behind; while in 6.101 it is accomplished by the syntactic patterns know as pseudo-
cleft in A and cleft in B:

We can use the terms Figure and Ground to describe this kind of linguistic perspective:
if we call the situation described a scene, then the entity that the speaker chooses to
foreground is the figure (the house), and the background is the ground (cliff).

Passive constructions allow the foregrounding of roles other than PATIENT; THEME,
PERCEPT, and RECIPIENT roles occurring as the subject of passives:

When a theta-role normally occurs as a prepositional phrase in an active sentence, this is

less likely to be foregrounded in a
passive.

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Some apparent exceptions to this rule are possible however, for example:

To further underline this grammatical aspect of passives, we can look at a class of

English verbs called the spray/load verbs. These verbs allow the speaker to select either
their THEME role (6.112a-6.113a) or the GOAL (6.112b-6.113b), to be the verb's direct
object and thus be the focus of the effect of the action:

We can easily show that whichever argument occupies object position can be
passivized, while the argument in the prepositional phrase cannot.

Discourse factors affecting passives: for example, the notion of speaker empathy
Mary and her experience at the party (viewed at her perspective):

Passive is OK

Passive NOT OK

6.9 Classifiers and Noun Classes

So far in this chapter we have been exploring the ways that participants may be assigned
semantic roles relative to the action or situation described by the verb. In this section we
look at semantic characterizations that are based on inherent properties of the entities
referred to by noun phrases.

How referents fit into a semantic classification system?

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6.9.1. Classifiers

Noun classifiers are morphemes or lexical words that code characteristics of the
referent of the noun, allowing the speaker to classify the referent according to a system
of semantic/conceptual categories.

Inherent nature classifiers, includes as subtypes of classifiers: human; animals;

vegetation; natural objects and artifacts.
Functional classifiers: meat food; non-meat food; drinkable things; movable;
habitable, „purposeful noise‟

Numeral classifiers: occur when the entity is being counted.

Possessive classifiers: occur in constructions describing possession.

Verbal classifiers: occurs as a morpheme attached to the verb and serves to classify
(intransitive) subjects or objects.

Wherever they are marked grammatically classifiers tend to exploit a fixed set of
semantic distinctions. Though there is a large variation, it is possible to identify some
prototypical distinctions.

6.9.2. Noun classes

Noun classes are agreement-based noun systems that seem, at least historically, to be
based on semantic classifications somewhat similar to those we have seen for
classifiers.

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The key feature of noun class systems is that other elements in the sentence agree with
the noun in terms of its class.

Gender systems, familiar from Indo-European languages, in which nouns are assigned
to two or three classes: male, female and perhaps neuter, are a type of noun class
system.

Noun class systems may be differentiated from classifier by a number of features, some
of which are summarized by Dixon:

6.10 Summary

Main focus: The ways in which a speaker may portray the roles of participants in a
situation.

We outlined a classification of such semantic roles, termed thematic roles or theta-

roles, including AGENT, PATIENT, THEME, and so on, and described the relationship
between these roles and grammatical relations like subject and object.

It has been claimed as part of its inherent lexical specification a verb requires its
arguments to be in specific thematic roles, and that this can be reflected by formulating
thematic role grids, or thetagrids.

Difficulties in fixing tight definitions for individual thematic roles:

– One approach, from Dowty (1991), which seeks to provide a solution in terms of
fuzzy categories. This difficulty seems the notion of thematic roles has proved a
useful descriptive tool in a number of areas of the semantics–grammar interface.
– Causation, an important element in how speakers characterize a situation and
identify participants.
– The grammatical category of voice allows speakers different strategies for
relating thematic roles and grammatical relations.
– Relations with subject position, the way in which passive voice allows the
foregrounding of non- AGENT roles to subject and the backgrounding of
AGENT roles away from subject.
– Middle voice, which reflects the affectedness of the subject in the action of the
verb, thus offering a different view of the relationship between subject and verb
from the active voice. NOT COMPULSORY
– Classifiers and noun classes: systems where nouns identifying entities are
classified by inherent semantic features, though membership of the relevant
classes may be only partially semantically determined.

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EXERCISES
6.1 On the basis of the informal definitions in section 6.2, try to assign a single
thematic role label to each of the expressions in bold in the following sentences:

a. Helen drove to the party.

b. He swatted the fly with a newspaper.
c. The baboon was asleep on the roof of my car.
d. Joan drank the yard of ale.
e. Campbell saw the gun first.
f. George gave the doorman a tip.

6.2 For each of the theta-roles below, construct an English sentence where an argument
bearing that role occurs as subject. Use simple active sentences, avoiding for the
present exercise passive constructions and complex sentences.

a. EXPERIENCER
b. PATIENT
c. THEME
d. INSTRUMENT
e. RECIPIENT

6.3 For each of the theta-roles below, construct an English sentence where an argument
bearing that role occurs as object.

a. PATIENT
b. THEME
c. BENEFICIARY
d. RECIPIENT
e. STIMULUS

6.4 As we saw, Jackendoff (1990) proposes a distinction between a thematic tier of

thematic roles (relating to movement and location) and an action tier (relating to
ACTOR–PATIENT type relations). An argument may have a role at each level and thus
fulfill two roles. For example the underlined argument in The car smashed into the shop
window can be analyzed as both PATIENT and GOAL. For each of the combinations of
roles below, try to invent a sentence where a single argument fulfills the combination:

a. AGENT and GOAL

b. PATIENT and THEME
c. AGENT and SOURCE
d. AGENT and THEME

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6.5 In sections 6.5 and 6.6 we discussed proposals from Dowty (1991) to characterize
thematic roles in terms of clusters of entailments, and to describe the rules linking
thematic roles and grammatical relations like subject and object in terms of argument
selection principles. Using the selection principles in 6.81 in the chapter and the
properties of Proto-roles in 6.77 and 6.78, discuss the selection of subject and object
positions in the following sentences:

a. The butler is polishing the silverware.

b. The dogs will smell the food.
c. The train hit the cow.

What problems are posed for these principles by the selection of subject and objects in
the pairs of sentences below?

1. 1 a. He fears AIDS. b. AIDS frightens him.

2. 2 a. Patricia resembles Maura. b. Maura resembles Patricia.
3. 3 a. Joan bought a sports car from Jerry. b. Jerry sold a sports car to Joan.

6.6 We saw how passive allows the foregrounding of non- AGENT theta-roles into
subject position. Compare for example the active sentence 1 below with the passive
equivalent in 2:

1. CraigAG devoured the ice creamPA.

2. The ice creamPA was devoured by CraigAG.

Assume 2 is formed from 1 by a simple rule: (a) place the non-AGENT argument at the
beginning of the sentence; (b) change the active verb to a passive verb (e.g. devoured →
was devoured); (c) place the word by in front of the AGENT and place the AGENT at
the end of the sentence.

Below are some active sentences with a non-subject argument underlined. For each one,
use our simple rule to try to create a corresponding passive where the underlined non-
AGENT argument becomes subject.

a. The court fined Emma five hundred francs.

b. Aliens abducted me in the middle of my examination.
c. The professor mailed the answer to the student.
d. The professor mailed the answer to the student.
e. The professor mailed the student the answer.
f. The professor mailed the student the answer.

Were any of the resulting passives ungrammatical? If so, what explanation can you
give?

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6.7 In section 6.7 we described the English causativeinchoative verb alternation. In

the list of verbs below try to identify those verbs that undergo this alternation and those
that do not. Of the latter divide them into inchoative-only and causative-only types.
Note: In making your decisions try to avoid using examples with passive and middle
voice constructions since this alternation relates to the argument structure of verbs in
basic active voice sentences.

break, open, dirty, melt, disappear, bend, erupt, mow,

dissolve, dry, decay, tilt, crush

6.8 As we saw, in some languages (e.g. Somali) when a speaker describes a reflexive
act of grooming, say for example the equivalent of I wash myself, the verb occurs in a
middle voice form with no object. In others (e.g. French) a reflexive pronoun is used
as the object. In English we find another strategy: some verbs which are normally
transitive allow the speaker to omit the object in order to convey a reflexive meaning.
For example, we know that hide is normally a transitive verb because of sentences like

She hid the money; however She hid means of course She hid herself. So English has
verbs like hide, which by omitting an argument can convey an understood reflexive
object. Unlike Somali though, the English verbs in these constructions do not have a
special middle voice ending. Below are some verbs which describe what we could call
acts of grooming. Decide which of these allow an understood reflexive object.

undress towel

wash bathe

brush shampoo

soap shave

strip lather

Is there any semantic differences between those verbs which allow this understood
reflexive object and those which do not? If you think there is, test your hypothesis with
other verbs from this semantic field of grooming.

6.9 Design lexical theta-grids for the verbs in bold in the sentences below. For example
a theta-grid for buy in Deedee bought the car for his mistress would be: buy <AGENT,
THEME, BENEFICIARY>.

a. Brenda reported the incident to her boss.

b. Frogs fell from the sky.
c. Our headquarters will remain in London.
d. Batman received a commendation from the mayor.
e. Harvey noticed a strange smell.

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SOLUTIONS
6.1

a. Helen is an AGENT; and the party is a GOAL argument.

b. he: AGENT, the fly: PATIENT, a newspaper: INSTRUMENT.
c. baboon: THEME, roof of my car: LOCATION
d. Joan: AGENT, yard of ale: PATIENT
e. Campbell: EXPERIENCER, the gun: STIMULUS.
f. George: AGENT, the doorman: RECIPIENT; a tip: THEME.

6.2

a. Harold felt the heat of the sun.

b. The wall collapsed under the pressure.
c. The ball flew over the fence.
d. The knife cut the rope.
e. Jaime accepted the prize from the Dean.

6.3

a. The protesters destroyed the fence.

b. Bill threw the frisbee into the air.
c. Joan baked her mother a cake.
d. John gave his wife a diamond ring.
e. The team heard the cheering.

6.4

a. AGENT and GOAL: Helen accepted the Oscar.

b. PATIENT and THEME: Regina crushed her cigarette into the lawn.
c. AGENT and SOURCE: The referee tossed the ball to the goalkeeper.
d. AGENT and THEME: Miguel bungee-jumped off the bridge.

6.5

In sentence a the subject the butler is a typical AGENT, combining properties of

volition, sentience, causing and movement, as predicted by Dowty's model. The object
the silverware is also as predicted, a typical PATIENT, undergoing change of state by
an incremental process, causally affected by another, and stationary. In b the dogs is a
less typical subject, lacking (at least) volition and causation while the food is an
untypical object, lacking change of state, and not being affected by the other
participant(s). In c the train is also a less typical subject, lacking agency, while the cow
is a typical object. For the problem cases:

1. These two sentences have the same types of argument showing up as both subject and
object, with different verbs. We saw in 6.79 in the chapter that the first corollary of the
Argument Selection Principle suggested that: “If two arguments of a relation have
(approximately) equal numbers of entailed Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient properties,
then either or both may be lexicalized as the subject (and similarly for objects).” This
might explain how we could say both She married him and He married her to describe
the same situation, where the difference could be explained pragmatically by the
conversational context. However, this doesn't seem to work here because a person, he,
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should presumably always have more Proto-Agent properties than a disease. The
conclusion one might make is that the principles might be considered as a default that
can be overridden by a particular verb's requirements for arguments.

2. Here both arguments of the same verb have equal numbers of entailments so the
Principle cannot explain the difference. This is one of viewpoint or perspective and is
context dependent.

3. This is similar to 1. The buyer and seller in a transaction will plausibly have the same
numbers of Proto-Agent and Proto-Patient properties, so the subject selection depends
on the semantics of the individual verbs buy and sell, which allow different viewpoints
on the same situation.

6.6

This exercise focuses on the interaction between the English passive rule and the rule of
Dative Alternation, or Dative Shift. There are differences between dialects of English in
how this operates and you will need to see which sound fine to you. The symbol * is
used for versions predicted as ungrammatical for all major varieties of English.

a. Emma was fined five hundred francs by the court.

b. I was abducted in the middle of my examination by aliens. This sentence is
grammatically fine though if in context the aliens are of higher salience a speaker
might prefer: I was abducted by aliens in the middle of my examination.
c. The answer was mailed to the student by the professor.
d. *To the student was mailed the answer by the professor/*The student was mailed
the answer to by the professor. The problem here is that non-subject argument is
in a prepositional phrase, which is not covered by our proposed rule.
e. The student was mailed the answer by the professor.
f. The answer was mailed to the student by the professor. This construction is
rejected by some speakers, but accepted by others.

6.7

There is some variation in speakers' use of these verbs but a characteristic distribution is
below:

Causative-inchoative alternation verbs: break, open, melt, bend, dissolve, dry, tilt

Inchoative only: disappear, erupt, decay

Causative only: dirty, mow, crush

6.8

The following verbs typically allow an understood reflexive object: undress, strip (i.e.
oneself of clothes), bathe, and shave, e.g. He undressed. In contrast the sentences He
brushed, He soaped, He toweled, and He lathered seem incomplete, except where the
context allows ellipsis, for example in a list of actions. Speakers seem to vary in
whether the verb shampoo can be used with an understood reflexive object.

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6.9

We assume that theta-grids specify required arguments of the verb. This means, for
example, deciding whether prepositional phrases in specific sentence are arguments or
adjuncts. For the purposes of this exercise we can simply ignore these decisions and
simply list all the phrases as part of the grid.

a. report: V: <AGENT, THEME, GOAL>

b. fall: V: <THEME, SOURCE>
c. remain: V: <THEME, LOCATION>
d. receive: V: <RECIPIENT, THEME, SOURCE>
e. notice: V: <EXPERIENCER, STIMULUS>

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