Semantic roles of clause elements

Subject:
 Agentive: the animate being that causes or instigates the happening denoted
by the verb (Margaret is mowing the grass).

 External causer: expresses the unwitting [unintentional] (generally inanimate)

cause of the event (The avalanche destroyed several houses; The electric sock
killed them).
 Instrument: the entity (generally inanimate) which an agent uses to perform an
action or instigate a process (A car knocked them down; A computer has
solved the problem).
 Affected: with intransitive verbs, elsewhere typical role of direct objects (Jack
fell down; The pencil was lying on the table).

 Recipient: with verbs such as: have, own, possess, benefit from (Exercising
has a lot of benefits; Mr. Smiths owns a Cadillac).
 Experiencer: with perceptual verbs: see, hear, taste, smell; and with verbs
indicating cognition or emotion such as think, like, feel. (I like chocolate ice-
cream; The soup tastes good).

 Positioner: with intransitive stance verbs such as: sit, stand, lie, live, stay,
remain; with transitive verbs related to stance verbs such as: carry, hold, keep,
wear. (I have lived in London for most of my life; They are staying at a motel;
My friend is sitting in a chair near the door).

 Locative: designates the place of the state or action (Los Angeles is foggy;
The jar contains coffee).
 Temporal: designation of time (Yesterday was a holiday).
 Eventive: the noun head of the subject is usually deverbal or a nominalization
(The match is tomorrow; The Norman invasion took place in 1066; The dispute
over de inheritance lasted a decade).

 Prop it subject: Clauses where no participant is needed. Prop ‘it’ mainly occurs
in clauses designating a) time; b) atmospheric conditions; c) distance.
a) It’s ten o clock precisely. It’s our anniversary next month.
b) It’s raining? It’s getting dark.
c) It’s not very far to York. It’s just one more stop to Toronto.

Direct Object:
 Locative: with verbs such as walk, swim, pass, jump, turn, leave, reach,
surround, cross, climb, etc. (John swam the river; I passed a cyclist).
 Resultant: the object is an object whose referent exists only by virtue of the
activity indicated by the verb. The object is created or become to exist because
of the activity performed. (Baird invented television; They are designing a new
car).
  Affected: “X did something to Y” (I’m digging the ground; He is mopping the
floor).
 Cognate: It refers to an event indicated by the verb. The noun head is
semantically and often morphologically related to the verb, and its function is
merely to repeat, wholly or partially, the meaning of the verb. (Chris will sing a
song for us; She lived a good life).
 Eventive: it’s a deverbal noun, preceded by a verb of general meaning – take,
make, do, have, give – and is semantically an extension of the verb and bears
the major part of the meaning (They are having an argument; I gave them some
advice; Sarah is doing her homework; The baby is having a shower).

Indirect Object:
 Recipient: The typical role of the DI; the animate being that is passively
involved by the happening or state (We paid them the money).
 Affected: it combines with an eventive direct object and the indirect object has
the same role as the affected direct object in the paraphrases. (She gave the
baby a bath = she bathed the baby; Judith paid me a visit = Judith visited me).

Finite, non-finite, and verbless clauses

The three main structural classes of clauses

 Finite clause: a clause whose verb element is finite (I can´t go out with you
because I’m studying this evening).
 Nonfinite clause: a clause whose verb element is nonfinite (Knowing my
temper I didn’t reply).
 Verbless clause: a clause that doesn’t have a verb element (although always
helpful he was not much liked)

Nonfinite clauses

1- To infinitive
Without subject: the best thing would be to tell everybody.
With subject: The best thing would be for you to tell everybody.

2- Bare infinitive
Without subject: all I did was hit him on the head.
With subject: rather than you do the job, I’d prefer to finish it myself.

3- -ing participle
Without subject: leaving the room, he tripped over the mat.
With subject: her aunt having left the room, I asked Ann for some help.
 4- -ed participle
without subject: Covered with confusion, they apologized abjectly
with subject: The discussion completed; the chairman adjourned the meeting for
half an hour.

Verbless clauses
In verbless clauses it is usually possible to postulate a missing form of the verb be and
to recover the subject, when omitted, from the context. (Whether right or wrong, he
always comes off worst in argument = Whether he is right or wrong, he… argument).

Since it is usually possible to interpret the clause as having an omitted form of the verb
be, the verbless clause is limited to the two clause-types SVC and SVA, with or without
subordinator (sub). For example:

I don’t want to describe his assertions, some of them highly offensive. [S(V)C]

While at college, he was a prominent member of the dramatic society. Sub. [(SV)A]

Formal indicators of subordination