Syntactic Processes Flashcards
classification of Arguments (2)
- grammatical relation to the verb
- semantic role in the event
What is a Grammatical Relation (4)
- subject
- direct object
- Indirect object
- Oblique object
Semantic Roles (8)
- Agent
- Patient
- Instrument
- Experiencer
- Theme
- Location
- Recipient
- Beneficiary
what is a semantic role?
characterizations of the way an event participates in an event
what is an Agent:
participation that willfully initiates interaction (animate)
ex: STEVE gave Sue a gift
ex: STEVE broke a mirror
what is a Patient
Participation that is affected by an action and undergoes a change of state (dies, or wounded)
ex: the FLY dies
ex: Steve broke the MIRROR
what is an Experiencer:
participant that perceives something, receives some sensation or reacts to some event (animate). 5 senses/perception
ex: Steve SAW the train
ex: Steve HEARD a noise
what is a Theme:
participant that undergoes some motion or process, but doesn’t change state (no modification to the object) usually the D.object
ex: Steve saw THE TRAIN
ex: Steve put THE WALLET on the table
What is a Recipient:
Participant that received some transferred object: animate (usually)
ex: Steve gave SUE a gift
ex: SUE received a gift
ex:
what is a Beneficiary:
Participant that benefits from an event (animate)
ex: I cooked SUE dinner
ex: I cooked dinner for SUE
**Look for the preposition “FOR”
what is an instrument:
participant that us used to carry out the action (inanimate)
ex: the FLY SWATTER hit the fly
ex: Steve hit the fly with the FLY SWATTER
What is Location:
spatial location that a participant occupies, moves to, or moves from
ex: Steve is AT HIS OFFICE
ex: Steve came FROM HIS OFFICE
Grammatical process (3)
- Voice (full, agentless, impersonal, antipassive)
- causatives
- Applicatives
Subject Relation is assigned to
the argument expressing the most important Semantic role (agent)
The Direct object Relation is assigned to
the argument expressing the next most important semantic role (patient)
Tendency of subjects and Direct objects
Subjects = Agents
Direct Objects = Patients
Voice
grammatical process that changes the diathesis of the verb by moving the grammatical relations and semantic roles
Voice options (4)
- Full Passive
- Agentless Passive
- Impersonal Passive
- Antipassive
Full Passive voice: expression
- Analytically (aux + participle)
- Morphologically (morpheme on the lexical verb)
Full Passive voice: syntax effects
S –> optional OblObj
O –> S
Transitive –> Intransitive
Syntactic Properties of a Full Passive Voice
- demotes the subject to an optional oblique object
-promotes the direct object to a subject.
ex: the hunter killed the bear
–> the bear was killed by the hunter
What are the Pragmatic Properties of Full Passive?
It makes the agent less prominent by demoting it or omitting it
How is agentless Passive expressed?
- morphologically (morpheme on lexical verb)
Agentless passive: Syntactic effects
the Subject is suppressed
Agentless Passive: pragmatic effects
the participant introduced by the Subject (the agents) isn’t mentioned.
ex: the man was seen
–> (who saw the man??)
How is Impersonal Passive expressed analytically
Analytically: aux+verb pattern
How is Impersonal Passive expressed Syntactically
-demotes the subject of the active to an optional oblique object
inserts a “dummy” subject (non lexical Subject equivalent to the English pronominal “it”
Example of Impersonal Passive
It is said that this is a ground-breaking study
How is Antipassive expressed morphologically? (English doesn’t have this)
- antipassive morpheme on the lexical verb
- demotes Direct object to oblique object (may be deleted)
promotes and A argument to an S argument - Patient become lower in individuation
Antipassive Syntactic effects (3)
- Demotes direct object of the active voice to oblique object
- applies to a transitive clause
- turns transitive clause into an intransitive clause
What languages is Passive more common?
Nominative-Accusative languages
What languages is Antipassive more common?
Ergative-Absoloutive languages
What is a Grammatical Pivots
- links NP together across different clauses
Grammatical Pivots in accusative languages
-Accusative languages have Subject Pivot (S=A) can be deleted in the second clause
What do causatives do?
add a new participant that is realized as a subject and has the semantic role of a causer.
Adds new clause and possible predicate
–> ex: I had them studying
ex: I forced them to…
What do Applicatives do?
add new participant that is realized as an object
can influence semantic roles
what is a CAUSER
agent that does or initiates something.
because of their actions, the causee performs the action described by the verb
