English 311: Semantics

Course Instructor: Tania Rahman (TRn)

SENTENCE SEMANTICS:
SITUATION AND
PARTICIPANT

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 Overview
 Recap
 Situations
 Verb Types
 Verb/Situation Types
 Stative
 Dynamic
 Punctual
 Durative
 Telic/Resultative
 Atelic
 TAM: Tense, Aspect and Modality
 Tense/Aspect and Time: R, S and E
 Modality
 Epistemic
 Deontic: Permission, Obligation
 Mood and Evidentiality
 Participants
 Thematic Roles
 Grammatical Relations and Thematic Roles
 Verbs and Thematic Role Grids
 Problems with Thematic Roles
 The Motivation for Identifying Thematic Roles
 Voice
 Classifiers and Noun Classes

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Situations

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 Situation Types

Situations Stative Durative Telic Examples

State + + desire,
Activity Accomplishment− + − know
run, drive a car
+ + bake, walk to school,
− Punctual − build
Achievement − − − knock, flash
− + win, start
 Tense and Time
 Locate a situation to a point in time:
S = speech point; R = reference time: E =
event time
 Simple Tense
Past (R = E < S) saw
Present (R = S = E) see
Future (S < R = E) will see
 Complex Tense
 Past Perfect (E < R < S) had seen
 Present Perfect (E < R = S) had seen
 Future Perfect (S < E < R) had seen

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 Aspect in General
 Perfective focus on the end point
Completive I built the building
Experiential I have built the building
 Imperfective
Progressive I was listening/I am listening
Habitual I listen to the Goon Show
 Differentlanguages grammaticalize
different things

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 Mood: Knowledge vs Obligation
 Epistemic modality: Speaker signals degree of
knowledge. (1) You can drive this car (You are
able to)
 Deontic modality: Speaker signals his/her

attitude to social factors of obligation and

permission.
Permission (2) You can drive this car (You have
permission to)
(3) You may drive this car
Obligation (4) You must drive this car (You have an
obligation to)
(5) You ought to drive this car

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 Mood more Generally
 Grammatical Inflection used to mark modality is called
mood
 indicative expresses factual statements
 conditional expresses events dependent on a condition
 imperative expresses commands
 injunctive expresses pleading, insistence, imploring
 optative expresses hopes, wishes or commands
 potential expresses something likely to happen
 subjunctive expresses hypothetical events; opinions or
emotions
 interrogative expresses questions
 English only really marks imperative and subjunctive,
and then only on be
(6) Be good!
(7) If I were a rich man
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Participants

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 Thematic Roles
 Thematic roles are parts of the sentence that
correspond to the participants in the situation
described
 They classify relations between entities in a

situation
 Roles link different alternations

(1) Kim patted Sandy

(2) Sandy was patted by Kim

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 Thematic Roles
 AGENT (takes deliberately, on purpose, what did X do?)
 Volitional, typically animate
 Typically subject
 Kim kicked Sandy
 PATIENT (What happened to X?)
 Undergoes change in state usually, both animate and
inanimate
 Typically object
 Kim kicked Sandy
 THEME
 Moved, location or state is described
 Typically object
 He put the book on the shelf

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 EXPERIENCER
Non-volitional, displaying awareness of action, state
Typically subject
He heard thunder
 BENEFICIARY
for whose benefit the action was performed
Typically indexed by ”for” PP and ”to” PP in English
They gave me a present
They gave a present to me
They made a present for me

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 LOCATION
Place
Typically indexed by locative PPs in English
I live in Mohakhali
 GOAL
towards which something moves (lit or metaphor)
Typically indexed by ”to” PP in English
She handed her form to him, She handed him her
form
 SOURCE
from which something moves or originates
Typically indexed by ”from” PP in English
We gleaned this from the Internet

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 INSTRUMENT/MANNER
Means by which action is performed
Can be indexed by ”with” PP in English
I ate breakfast with chopsticks
 STIMULUS
 Usually used in connection with EXPERIENCER
 The lightning scared him

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 Theta-Grid
 Verbs can be described with their valence (theta-grid,
subcategorization)
 give: V⟨AGENT, THEME, BENEFICIARY⟩
 underlined role maps to subject
 order of roles allows prediction of grammatical function
 This is used to link the meaning with the realization
 Distinguish (with fuzzy boundaries) between
 participant roles: depend on the verb — in the grid
(arguments) obligatory; part of meaning; idiosyncratic
syntax; participate in alternations
 non-participant roles: combine freely — not in the grid
(adjuncts)
 Theta Roles are semantic NOT syntactic

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 Linking Grammatical Relations and Thematic
Roles
 Thematic roles typically map onto grammatical functions
systematically
 AGENT is usually the subject
 PATIENT is usually the object
 It is possible to predict how arguments are linked to the verb

from their thematic roles, and hence their grammatical functions.

 Thematic Hierarchy The higher you are in the hierarchy the more

likely to be subject (then object, then indirect, then argument PP,

then adjunct PP
AGENT >{ RECIPIENT { THEME
BENEFICIARY }> PATIENT}> INSTRUMENT >
LOCATION
 Generally true across languages

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 Alternations
 Many verbs can have multiple theta-grids
(3) a. Kim broke the window with the hammer
b. The hammer broke the window
c. The window broke
(4) a. I cut the cake with the knife
b. This cake cuts easily
 The relations between them are called

alternations
 English Verb Classes and Alternation (Levin

1993)

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 Voice
 Another way to change the number of arguments is
voice: passive, middle
(5) Transitive Passive
a. Kim ate Sandy
b. Sandy was eaten by Kim
(6) Ditransitive Passive
a. A gave B C; A gave C to B
b. C was given to B by A; B was given C by A
(7) Transitive Middle (or just causative/inchoative)
a. They open the gate very quietly
b. The gate opens very quietly
(8) Intransitive Middle
a. The knife cuts the cake well
b. The knife cuts well
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Classifiers and Noun Classes
 Many languages include special ways to
classify nouns
Noun Classifiers (Bantu, Yidi , …)
Numeral Classifiers (Chinese, Malay, Japanese, …)
 English group nouns: flock, mob, group, pack, …
Gender (German, Spanish, …)
 Classifiers
can be marked on the noun, on the
verb, on a separate word (a classifier) or on all
words

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 What gets Classified?
 Taxonomic Class: Human, Animal, Tree, Female
 Function: piercing, cutting, writing instrument,

for eating/drinking
 Shape: long, flat, round (1D, 2D, 3D)
 Consistency: rigid, flexible
 Size: grab in fingers, hand, < human, >

human
 Location: towns
 Arrangement: row, coil, heap
 Quanta: head, pack, flock

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Noun Classes vs Classifiers
Noun classes Classifiers
Size Small Finite Set Large Number (low
hundreds)
Realization Closed Separate Grammatical
System Morpheme
Marking Also outside Only in the noun the noun word
phrase
 Gender (noun class in e.g., German)

 typically 3 (Masculine, Feminine, Neuter)

 marked as inflection

 marked on determiners, adjective and nouns

 Numeral Classifiers (in e.g., Japanese)

 typically 30-80 in common use, hundreds exist

 separate classifier phrase (numeral/interrogative+classifier)

 classifier phrase modifies noun

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 Summary
 Semantics motivates syntax
But most generalizations fail to cover all examples
 Argument structure and thematic roles link
predicates and their arguments
Remember the basic roles and examples
 Dowty’s Argument Selection Principle
prototypical agents and patients are subjects
and objects
 Problems with thematic roles
 Noun Classes and Classifiers

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