Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume I: Clause Structure, Second edition
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Lgg Typology, Synt Description v. I - Clause structure
Avery D. Andrews
be used at all, and, if so, what they should be applied to. In this chapter, ‘subject’ and ‘object’ will therefore be taken as recurrently convenient terms, rather than presumedly universal grammatical primitives. 1.1.2 Other semantic roles Besides agent and patient, a number of other semantic roles are also important for grammar. Semantic roles in general may be divided into two rough classes: participatory and circumstantial. Participa- tory roles are borne by what one would think of as actual participants in the situation implied by the verb. Agent and patient are the most essential and typ- ical participatory roles. Circumstantial roles are borne by entities that do not really participate, but instead form part of the setting of the event. Benefactive, the person for whom something is done, is a typical circumstantial role. Aside from agent and patient, some of the other more important participatory roles are: directional, with source and goal subtypes; ‘inner’ locative (giving the location of a participant, rather than of the event or state as a whole); experiencer (a participant who is characterized as aware of something); recipient (a participant who ‘gets’ something); theme (a participant which is characterized as being in a state or position, or changing its state or position, sometimes treated as a kind of patient); causer (a participant who causes something to happen, but does not act intentionally); and instrumental (a participant that the agent uses to act on the patient). Note that the theme and patient roles are closely related, though not identical: unlike patients, themes needn’t be acted upon by anything, and it is sometimes appropriate to regard as patients certain arguments, such as things that are hit or kicked, which may be regarded as affected by what is done to them, but do not necessarily undergo a clearcut change of state. Our list of roles is furthermore not supposed to be a valid and thorough classification of all forms of participation, but simply an assortment of ones which get distinctive treatment by grammars often enough to be worth setting up names for. Here are some examples of these roles: (7) a. Tiger snakes theme inhabit Australia innerlocative b. George agent&theme walked from/to the store source/goal c. I experiencer love Lucy d. Frederika causer annoys me experiencer e. Darlene agent handed Bruce recipient a sausage theme f. Bill agent prodded the snake patient with a stick instrumental g. The Earth causer attracts the moon theme h. The car theme is expensive Note that not every np in these examples is labelled with one of our semantic roles. This is because no presently known system of semantic roles can be applied in a comprehensive and convincing manner. For example Lucy in (7c) The major functions of the noun phrase 141 isn’t subscripted for a role; some possibilities might be ‘goal’ or ‘object of emotion’, but no specific proposal has received widespread acceptance. Aside from benefactive, some other important circumstantial roles are ‘outer’ locative, (the place where something is done), reason (why something is done), circumstantial comitative (something that accompanies a participant, but does not itself participate), and temporal. These are illustrated below: (8) a. Susan caught a lizard in the garden outerlocative b. Bruce barbecued a sausage for Darlene benefactive c. Alvin shot up a sign for fun reason d. Shirley went diving with a speargun circumstantialcomitative e. Jack ate a sausage during the race temporal The distinction between participatory and circumstantial roles is closely related to a distinction between ‘arguments’ and ‘adjuncts’ that will be introduced in section 2.3. There are of course many (perhaps infinitely many) more semantic roles that might be significant for the grammar of a language. The ones discussed here are merely some of the more recurrent ones. It should also be pointed out that, in accord with most of the literature, we have paid no serious attention to the problem of defining the semantic roles, but just contented ourselves with rather vague characterizations. Download 1.59 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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