Arguments and semantic roles
المؤلف:
PAUL R. KROEGER
المصدر:
Analyzing Grammar An Introduction
الجزء والصفحة:
P53-C4
2025-12-12
32
Arguments and semantic roles
The properties or relationships described by different predicates may differ in any number of specific details, but many of these differences will have no effect on the grammatical structure of the sentence. For example, someone who slaps John (as Mary did in(5d)) is performing a different action from someone who spanks, beats, whips, punches, or clubs him. But, in most contexts, the semantic differences among these verbs are irrelevant to the grammar. Simple sentences which express the relationship between John and Mary will have exactly the same grammatical structure no matter which of these verbs is used. On the other hand, in some languages sentences like Mary loves John or Mary sees John would have different grammatical properties from Mary slaps John.
It is helpful to classify arguments into broad semantic categories according to the kind of role they play in the situations described by their predicates. For example in the sentence Mary slaps John, Mary plays the role of an AGENT, while John plays the role of a PATIENT. The same roles are involved if Mary spanks, beats, whips, punches, or clubs John. In the sentence Mary sees John, however, Mary plays the role of an EXPERIENCER; John is the perceived object, which we will call a STIMULUS. The use of a different role label implies a potential difference in grammatical properties.1
How many of these categories are there? How many role labels do we need to use? Different linguists have different opinions on this issue, and (unfortunately but not surprisingly) sometimes use the same labels in different ways. We will make use of (at least) the following semantic roles:
(6) INVENTORY OF SEMANTIC ROLES:2
AGENT: causer or initiator of events
EXPERIENCER: animate entity which perceives a stimulus or registers a particular mental or emotional process or state
RECIPIENT: animate entity which receives or acquires something
BENEFICIARY: entity (usually animate) for whose benefit an action is performed
INSTRUMENT: inanimate entity used by an agent to perform some action
THEME: entity which undergoes a change of location or possession, or whose location is being specified
PATIENT: entity which is acted upon, affected, or created; or of which a state or change of state is predicated
STIMULUS: object of perception, cognition, or emotion; entity which is seen, heard, known, remembered, loved, hated, etc.
LOCATION: spatial reference point of the event (the SOURCE, GOAL, and PATH roles are often considered to be sub-types of LOCATION)
SOURCE: the origin or beginning point of a motion
GOAL: the destination or end-point of a motion
PATH: the trajectory or path way of a motion
ACCOMPANIMENT (or COMITATIVE): entity which accompanies or is associated with the performance of an action
1. Of course, semantic-role categories do not reflect all the semantic differences which could be relevant to grammar. However, semantic roles generally play a crucial part in the assignment of Grammatical Relations, which, in turn, determine a number of important grammatical features. As we will see, these features often include case, agreement, word order, and participation in various syntactic processes.
2. Notice that this list is restricted to ARGUMENT roles. Some other commonly expressed types of semantic information, e.g. time, manner, purpose, etc., are not included here, because the elements which express these concepts are almost always ADJUNCTS rather than arguments.
الاكثر قراءة في Semantics
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