Participant Roles and how they

are Expressed Grammatically

Chapter 6
Semantics 3430
Fall 2007
 What does a Verb Need?
• An early approach based upon grammatical
frames, which fails to deal with semantics
• An alternative approach based on the relationship
between semantic roles and grammatical roles
• Linking theory: the theory that we use to predict
possible relationships between semantic roles and
grammatical roles
• A new approach to verb flexibility: construction
grammar.

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 Subcategorization
• Chomsky (1965) proposed to divide up all
verbs into subcategories based on their
grammatical frames.
• put _NP PP (put the shoes under the desk)
• eat _(NP) (ate lunch, ate at noon)
• give _NP PP (give the account to Pat)
_NP NP (give Pat the account)
• contribute _(NP) (PP) (contribute some
money; contribute to the Red Cross)
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 What about Semantics?
• Alternations: The form of the frame can be
invariable while its content changes.
• Examples involving the frame V NP PP:
– Moe loaded the truck with lobsters.
– Moe loaded the lobsters into the truck.
– She drained the cash from the account.
– She drained the account of cash.

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 What about Semantics?
• A single NP in a verb’s grammatical frame
may express several different types of roles:

She risked his hostility

a swim in the ocean
her life

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A New Theory: Semantic Frames
• Words highlight some parts of a scene and
background others.

Figure 1. Hypotenuse.

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 Semantic Frames
• Verbs denote aspects of scenes.
• Scenes have participants.
• Verbs highlight some participants in a scene and
background others.
• Converses: buy/sell; own/belong to; lend/borrow.
• How exactly do these converses work?
• The members of each converse pair share a frame;
they differ with regard to which participants of that
frame they place in the foreground.

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 Foregrounding by a Verb
• What makes us say that a given participant is
foregrounded?
– It is necessarily expressed in the sentence:
• *She put the peanut butter.
– It is expressed by one of the core grammatical roles:
subject and object:
• She filled the bathtub. She poured the gin.
• Thematic roles expressed by preposition phrases
are called obliques.
• Obliques are almost always omissible.
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Examples of Foregrounding: The
Commercial Event Scenario
• There are two levels at which we can
describe participant roles:
– Frame-specific roles
– Thematic (semantic) roles
• We will generally be sticking to thematic
roles, but to talk about how converses work,
we need to use frame-specific roles too.
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Examples of Foregrounding: The
Commercial Event Scenario
• The Commercial Event Scenario

buyer seller goods currency

• The Transfer (or Removal) Scenario

agent goal/recipient theme source

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 The Alignment of Roles
from the Two Levels

buy buyer seller currency goods

agent source theme
sell buyer seller currency goods
goal agent theme
pay buyer seller currency goods
agent goal theme
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 What’s the Role of the Subject?
• In the set of verbs that presuppose the commercial-event
frame, the verb’s subject can correspond to different
frame-specific roles:
– Buyer (buy)
– Seller (sell)
– Goods (cost)
• Subject can also correspond to different thematic roles
(6.2).
– Patient: The ice melted.
– Theme: The rock rolled down the hill.
– Recipient: She got a prize.
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Another Two Levels: Action and
Thematic Tiers (6.3)
• When we are identifying thematic roles, there are
levels at which we can do that:
– The thematic tier (movement and location)
– The action tier (causation and change of state)
• Invent a sentence in which a single argument is
both:
– Agent and goal
– Patient and theme
– Agent and theme
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 Thematic Roles and Metaphor
• The theory of thematic roles requires us to assume
metaphorical mappings.
• Without metaphor, we would have to think of a new set
of semantic roles every time a verb (like give) is used
metaphorically!
• What are the thematic roles of the participants in the
following sentences?
– They laughed her out of the room.
– She fell into a depression.
– She gave him an idea.
– Let’s come back to the main point.
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 From Semantic Roles to
Grammatical Roles
• Linking theory proposes two proto-roles:
– Proto-agent: has volition, is an energy source, moves.
– Proto-patient: acted upon, undergoes change of state.
• Proto-roles intervene between thematic roles and
grammatical roles (subject, object, oblique).
• An intransitive clause may have either an proto-
patient or a proto-agent, but not both.

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 Semantic Role Hierarchy
• Proto-agent will be linked to the subject
role.
• Proto-patient will be linked to subject role or
the object role, if the verb has an object.
agent instrument location theme patient
Proto-agent Proto-patient

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 How does Linking Work?
• Traditional grammar defines subject as the ‘doer
of an action’, but subjects need not be agents:
– Sue broke our window (with a rock).
– A rock broke our window.
– Our window broke.
– *A rock broke our window by Sue.
• A lower-ranking thematic role can link to subject
only if no higher-ranking role is present.

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 Exceptional Linkings
• Which sentence in each pair violates the predictions
of the semantic-role hierarchy?

– She loaded lobsters onto the truck.

– She loaded the truck with lobsters.

– She stripped the leaves off the tree.

– She stripped the tree of leaves.

– She gave the account to Pat.

– She gave Pat the account.
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 Passive (6.5)
• Which linking is chosen will influence what
the passive version of the verb is.
• What is the passive version of The
professor sent the answer to the student?
• What is the passive version of The
professor sent the student the answer?
• Do not add or subtract the preposition to
when you determine the passive version.
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 Linking Alternations Latin
• Latin

Populus Ciceroni immortalitatem donavit.

People:NOM Cicero:DAT immortality:ACC gave:3pl
‘The people gave immortality to Cicero.’

Populus Ciceronem immortalitate donavit.

People:NOM Cicero:ACC immortality:ABL gave:3pl
‘The people endowed Cicero with immortality.’

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 Latin Linking: Passive
• Two possibilities for passive in Latin

Immortalitas est donatus Ciceroni

Immortality:NOM is given:masc:sg Cicero: DAT
ab populo.
by people:ABL
‘Immortality was given to Cicero by the people.’

Cicero est donatus immortalitate

Cicero:NOM is given:masc:sg immortality:ABL
ab populo.
by people:ABL
‘Cicero was endowed with immortality by the people.’
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 Recent Inquiries into the
Flexibility of Verb Meaning
• Does the number of semantic roles assigned
by a given verb always remain the same?
• Can speakers use constructions to add
semantic roles to the verb?
• We can answer these questions by looking
at naturally occurring language data.
• In many genres, we find creative uses of
verbs.
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 More Examples of Flexible
Verb Meanings
• The Presentational Construction
– Normal: On the ground lay a shoe.
– New: Near the clubhouse sparkles the community pool.
• The Caused Motion construction
– Normal: She pushed the glass off the counter.
– New: A gruff ‘police monk’ barked them back to work.
• The Directed Motion construction
– Normal: She walked through the gate.
– New: She squirmed through the fence posts.
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 Even more Examples of
Flexibility in Verb Meanings
The Ditransitive construction
• I gave them a gift.
• We adopted her a sister.
• I hailed them a cab.
The Resultative construction
• I made the table less wobbly.
• They cried their eyes red.
• I ate myself sick.
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 A Recent Proposal
• Linking patterns exist independently of
verbs and have meanings similar to those of
verbs (transfer, causation)
• The patterns can modify verb meanings by
adding semantic roles.
• These patterns can make verbs from nouns:
I spread the bread with butter.
I buttered the bread.
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