1Week 3a. θ-roles, feature checking3.5-3.6CAS LX 522Syntax IPreviously, in LX522… We left off last time exploringthe idea that sentence are builtfrom syntactic objects by usingthe operation Merge, takingtwo syntactic objects andforming a new one from them. One of the two objects is thehead of the new object—themost important component—and the features of the newobject are inherited (projected)from the head. The question now is: how doesMerge know which one is thehead?B CD EWho’s in charge here? The idea we are going topursue here is that one ofthe two objects needs Mergeto happen—and the needyone is the head. What does it mean to“need to Merge”? Consider hit. This can’treally stand on its own. Itdoesn’t mean anything (itstruth can’t be evaluated)without providing a hitterand a hittee.B CD EPredicates, arguments, andpropositions Conventional wisdom has it that a sentenceneeds a subject and a predicate. The idea is that the sentence expresses that theproperty signified by the predicate holds of thesubject. Pat danced. Danced is the predicate, it’s a property that Pat,the subject, has (if the sentence is true).Something that can be true or false, a “completethought”, is a proposition.Verbs and arguments Some are basically complete as they stand. Rain: It rained. Some have only a subject, they can’t have anobject—the intransitive verbs (1-place predicates). Sleep: Bill slept; *Bill slept the book. Some also need an object—the transitive verbs (2-place predicates). Hit: *Bill hit; Bill hit the pillow. Some need two objects—ditransitive verbs (3-placepredicates). Put: *Bill put; *Bill put the book;Bill put the book on the table.Verbs and arguments The “participants” in an event denoted by theverb are the arguments of that verb. Some verbs require one argument, some requiretwo arguments, some require three arguments,some require none. Intuitively, the number of arguments is thenumber of things that a verb needs in order tomake a proposition—something that can beeither true or false.2Predicates We will consider verbs to be predicateswhich define properties of and/orrelations between the arguments. Bill hit the ball There was a hitting, Bill did the hitting, theball was affected by the hitting. Different arguments have different rolesin the event. (e.g., The hitter, the hittee)Thematic relations It has come to be standard practice tothink of the selectional restrictions interms of the thematic relation that theargument has to the verb—the role it playsin the event. One thematic relation is agent of an action,like Bill in: Bill kicked the ball.Common thematic relations Agent: initiator or doer in the event Theme: affected by the event, orundergoes the action Bill kicked the ball. Experiencer: feel or perceive the event Bill likes pizza. Proposition: a statement, can betrue/false. Bill said that he likes pizza.Thematic relations Goal: Bill ran to Copley Square. Bill gave the book to Mary. (Recipient) Source: Bill took a pencil from the pile. Instrument: Bill ate the burrito with a plastic spork. Benefactive: Bill cooked dinner for Mary. Location: Bill sits under the tree on Wednesdays.Thematic relations Armed with these terms, we can describethe semantic connection between the verband its arguments. Ray gave a grape to Bill. Ray: Agent, Source, … A grape: Theme Bill: Goal, Recipient, …θ-roles An argument can participate in several thematicrelations with the verb (e.g., Agent, Goal). In the syntax, we assign a special connection tothe verb called a “θ-role”, which is a collection ofthematic relations. For the purposes of syntax, the θ-role (thecollection of relations) is much more central thanthe actual relations in the collection.θ-roleAgentSource3θ-roles We will often need to make reference to aparticular θ-role, and we will often do thisby referring to the most prominentrelation in the collection. For example, in Bill hit the ball, we say thatBill has the “Agent θ -role”, meaning it hasa θ-role containing the Agent relation,perhaps among others.Intransitives:Unergatives and unaccusatives For intransitive verbs (1-place predicates), thereare two primary classes: Unergatives: Agent assigned to argument. Pat danced. Pat yodelled. Unaccusatives: Theme assigned to argument. Pat tripped. The boat sank. Basically what you’d expect considering thenormal transitive (2-place) verbs that have anAgent and a Theme. The naming of these classes is not my fault.The Unique θ Generalization Although an argument can have any number ofthematic relations in the θ-role… Each θ-role must be assigned to a constituent, but aconstituent cannot be assigned more than one θ-role. (a.k.a. “the θ-criterion”) On the other side, verbs (as we’ve seen) arerecorded in the lexicon with the number ofparticipants they require; each participant musthave a θ-role as well. Verbs have a certain number of θ-roles to assign (e.g.,say has two), and each of those must be assigned toa distinct argument.C-selection Verbs are recorded in the lexicon with the θ-rolesthey assign as part of their meaning. But, verbs are more selective than that. Pat felt a tremor. Pat felt uncomfortable. Pat felt thatChris had not performed well. Pat is the Experiencer; a tremor (noun), uncomfortable(adjective), or that…well (sentence) is theTheme/Source. So θ-role does not determinesyntactic category. And syntactic category certainlydoes not determine θ-role. So verbs also need to be recorded with informationabout the syntactic categor(y/ies) they combinewith.C-selection(“Subcategorization”) Kick needs a nominal object. Pat kicked the pail. Kick has a [V] category feature, but also needs tohave some form of [N] category featureindicating that it needs a nominal object. We don’t want to risk interpreting kick as a noun,though. So, the [V] and [N] features must have adifferent status. On kick, the [V] feature is interpretable— the [N]feature is just for use in assembling the structure,it is not interpreted—hence uninterpretable.C-selection Not all transitive verbs (that take just oneobject) can take the same kind of object. Sue knows [DP the answer ] Sue knows [CP that Bill left early ] Sue hit [DP the ball ] *Sue hit
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