Thematic roles语义学

Theme descried an entity moved in literal or figurative space by the action of the verb, but constitutionly unchanged. e.g.: Fred shattered the rock. ( Patient)
Theme (thematic tire)
Actor
b. Bill Theme Actor c. Bill Goal received enter
Patient ( action tier)
the room. Goal a letter. Theme (thematic tire) ( action tire) (thematic tire) (action tire)
Grammatical relations and thematic roles
Let's look at some examples of thematic role omission below: Peter broke the ice with a pickaxe[ˈpɪk, æks]镐. The pickaxe broke the ice. The ice broke. Several writers have suggested that this process of different roles occupying the subject position is a hierarchical process, not only in English but across many languages. The observation is that when speakers are constructing a sentence, they tend to place an agent to subject position, the next preference being for recipient or beneficiary , then theme/patient , then other roles.
Instrument
Instrument: the means by which an action is performed or something comes about. e.g.: John was injured with a stone. ※ John was injured by a stone.
Location
Location: the place in which something is situated or takes place. e.g.: The monster was hiding under the bed. The book is on the desk.
Goal
Goal: the entity towards which something moves, either literally or metaphorically. e.g.: Pat told the joke to his friend. She handed the magazine back to George.
Presumably these tires would divide thematic roles into two types:
a. Action tire roles: actor, agent, experiencer, patient, beneficiary, instrument. b. Thematic tire roles: theme, goal, source, location.
The ball was red.
The book is in the library.
Experiencer
Experiencer: the entity which is aware of the action or state described by the predicate but which is not in the control of the action or state. e.g.： John felt ill. Marry saw the smoke. John sometimes satounds me with his wit.
Jackendoff(1972) hold the view that one entity or one noun phrase can undertake more than one thematic roles at the same time.
In Jackenoff the idea that one nominal might fulfil more than one role is elaborated into a theory of tires of
3.Some variation in usage
Radford (1988) treats Patient and Theme as different names for the same role. Patient is reserved for entities acted upon and changed by the verd's action.
Thematic roles(题元角色）
Main content
Definition Classification Some variation in usage
Tests for identifying thematic roles and the difficulties to identify thematic roles
源自文库
Source
Source:the entity from which something moves, either literally or metaphorically. e.g.: The plane came back from Beijing. She borrowed a magazine from George.
Beneficiary
Beneficiary: the entity for whose benefit the action was performed. e.g.: Robert filled the form for his grandmother. They basked me a cake.
Fred threw the rock. ( Theme)
4.Tests for identifying thematic roles and difficulties to identify thematic roles
4.1 Tests for identifying thematic roles
2.Classification
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Agent Patient Theme Experiencer Beneficiary Instrument Location Goal Source
Agent
Agent: the initiator of some action, capable of acting with volition or the entity that performs the action. E.g.: She borrowed a book from the library.
Test for Agent: Jackendoff (1972) ,whether the phrases like deliberately, on purpose, in order to etc can be added to the sentence. e.g.: John took the book from Bill in order to read it.(Agent) John received the book from Bill in order to read it.(Not Agent) This reflect the fact that an agent characteristically diaplays animacy and volition. (这反映了代理格具有生命和意志的特性）
The wind blew the ball away.
The dog caught the ball.
Patient
Patient: the entity that undergoes the effect of some action, often undergoes a certain change of state. e.g.：The hunter bit the lion.
Grammatical relations and thematic roles
1.Definition
e.g.： Gina raised the car with a jack. These roles in the semantics have different names, for example, participant role(Levinson: 1983), semantic role ( Pa y ne : 1 99 7 ) a nd t hema t ic role ( Do wt y , Jackendoff).
4.2 Difficulties to identify thematic roles
在实际应用中，有时候很难辨别哪种角色由哪一类特殊的名 词短语来表示。 a: Fergus carried the bag to the lighthouse. b: Mary bought him a sports car. c: John received a gift of flowers. It is obvious that "the lighthouse" is the goal, "him" is the beneficiary, but how about "John"? It is the goal, beneficiary, or the recipient? So here the question is, if the same physical entity can appear in two or more different thematic roles?
thematic roles:
A: a thematic tires, which describes spatial relations. B: an action tire which describes ACTOR-PATIENT type relations.
a. Peter
Source
threw the ball.
The lion was bitten by the hunter.
The sun melted the ice.
Theme
Theme: the entity which is moved by an action, or whose location is described. e.g.: Robert passed the ball to me.
E.g.: The boy kicked himself.
Here the question is if we can say "the boy" is the agent and at the same time the theme?
One main diea of the Principles and the Parameters theory of Chomskey (Chomskey的原则和参数理论） is that the relationship between the noun phrases and the thematic roles is theta criterion（一 一对应关系）.