CAS LX 502 Semantics

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CAS LX 502Semantics

• 4a. Events and Theta roles
• 3.5, 4.4 (8.1, 8.2)

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Situations

• We can think of sentences as referring to
  situations (events, states, eventualities).
• A sentence like Pat opened the door can be
  thought of as meaning
• There is an event, it is an opening, it affects
  the door, and it is instigated by Pat.
• In understanding the details of our interpretive
  system, reference to events/situations can prove
  useful.

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Tense

• Events take place in time, and language uses
  tense to situate events in time.
• Pat sang the national anthem.
• (The singing event was in the pastbefore now)
• Pat will sing the national anthem.
• (The singing event is in the futureafter now)
• Pat is singing the national anthem.
• (The singing event is now)

Now
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Situation types

• States static and unchanging
• Individual-level
• Pat is tall.
• Pat knows French.
• Stage-level
• Pat is hungry.
• Pat is bored.
• Events dynamic, involving motion/change
• Pat is pushing the cart into the corner.

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Tense vs. aspect

• Tense locates a situation in time, aspect
  describes the internal temporal structure of the
  situation.
• Completed (perfect)
• Pat had eaten a sandwich.
• Pat has eaten a sandwich.
• Pat will have eaten a sandwich.
• Ongoing (progressive)
• Pat was eating a sandwich.
• Pat is eating a sandwich.
• Pat will be eating a sandwich.

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Classifying situations

• States (want, love, hate, know, believe)
• Activities (run, walk, swim, push a cart)
• Accomplishments (run a mile, walk to the store,
  paint a picture, draw a circle)
• Achievements (recognize, find, stop, reach the
  top)
• Semelfactives (cough, knock) (dont change state)

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Classifying situations

• The different situation types essentially define
  the different kinds of shadow the situation
  casts on the timeline.
• Point Part of our semantic knowledge includes
  knowledge about situations/events.
• We will return to a more detailed discussion of
  tense and aspect and event structure later in the
  course.

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Roles in an event

• Pat pushed the cart into the corner with a stick.
• This sentence describes an event, tying together
  several participants
• The event is a pushing event
• Pat is the instigator of the event
• The cart is affected (moved) during the event
• The corner marks the endpoint of the path
• A stick is the instrument used to effect the
  movement

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Thematic roles

• Agent initiator, capable of acting with volition
• Patient entity undergoing change
• Theme entity moved or located
• Experiencer Aware of event, but not in control
• Beneficiary Entity for whose benefit the event
  occurs
• Instrument Means by which event comes about
• Location Place in which event occurs
• Goal Entity/place toward which something moves
• Source Entity/place from which something moves

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thematic roles (q-grids)

• Among the pieces of information stored in our
  mental lexicon about predicates is the q-grid of
  a predicate.
• The predicate names a kind of event, and
  specifies what entities play a role in the event.
• put V ltAgent, Theme, Locationgt
• Pat put the book on the table.

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q-grids

• put V ltAgent, Theme, Locationgt
• Pat put the book on the table.
• Conventionally, only required q-roles are listed
  in the q-roles. That is, q-roles that are
  necessary in specifying the event.
• Pat put on the table.
• Pat put the book.
• Pat put the book on the table with a spatula.

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Arguments and adjuncts

• An argument is required by the q-grid.
• An adjunct is superfluous, less connected to the
  event, freer in ordering. Can be added to further
  specify any kind of compatible event.
• Pat put the fork.
• Pat put the fork on the table.
• Pat put the fork on the table with gusto at 6pm.
• Pat put the fork on the table at 6pm with gusto.
• With gusto, Pat put the fork on the table at 6pm.
• Pat put the fork at 6pm with gusto on the table.
• On the table, Pat put the fork at 6pm with gusto.

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Classes of verbs

• We can classify verbs by the number of q-roles in
  their q-grids.
• Intransitive trip ltThemegt
• Transitive kick ltAgent, Patientgt
• Ditransitive put ltAgent, Theme, Locationgt
• Atransitive rain lt gt
• Sort of.
• The baby kicked, Pat tripped Tracy, Chris read
  (the book). Its more complicated than it seems.

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Classes of verbs

• Even apart from valency (number of arguments in
  the q-grid), we can identify lots of classes of
  verbs that behave alike in terms of q-roles.
• give, lend, supply, pay, donate, contributeV
  ltAgent, Theme, Recipientgt
• receive, accept, borrow, buy, purchase, rent,
  hireVltRecipient, Theme, Sourcegt
• break, open, sink, collapseV ltPatientgtV
  ltAgent, Patientgt
• eat, drink, read, paintV ltAgentgtV ltAgent,
  Patientgt

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What are the q-roles?

• How do we know that the list of q-roles we have
  is right?
• We dont.
• We can group q-roles in various ways, or
  subdivide them. The question is what provides the
  greatest insight to linguistic structure.
• The rock frightens Pat.
• Pat frightens the rock.
• The car ran over the nail in the road.
• Theme Patient? Recipient Goal Beneficiary?
  Does it matter?
• Actor vs. Agent?
• Malicious Agent vs. Benevolent Agent?

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Can an argument get more than one thematic
role/q-role?

• Pat threw the ball to Tracy.
• Yes.
• (e.g., Jackendoff) Pat Agent, Source the ball
  Patient, Theme Tracy Goal.
• No.
• (e.g., Chomsky) q-roles can contain more than one
  q-relation, but it is linguistically one role
  (bundle of q-relations). Pat Agent, Source.
• Depends on what generalization is most useful in
  predicting things. Seems likely that the second
  one is better by that measure.

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Subjects and objects

• We can identify parts of sentences as subjects,
  predicates, objects.
• Often these are defined by position and by case.
• I met her. She met me.
• Grammatical roles and q-roles are dissociable.
• Pat closed the door.
• The door closed.

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Linking

• Almost any q-role can be a structural subject.
• Chris planned the heist.
• Tracy saw the crime occur.
• The window broke.
• The hammer smashed the glass.
• Chris tripped.
• Chris got a summons.

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Linking

• There are tendencies at least.
• If theres an Agent, it is the subject.
• The exam failed Pat.
• Otherwise, if theres an instrument, it is the
  subject.
• The hammer broke the vase.
• Otherwise, if theres a Theme or Patient, it is
  the subject.
• The vase broke.
• The vase broke with the hammer.

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Linking hierarchies

• Determining which q-role is the
  subject?Agent/Experiencer gt Instrument gt
  Theme/Patient
• Pat broke the vase on Tuesday with a hammer.
• The hammer broke the vase on Tuesday.
• The vase broke on Tuesday (with a hammer)
• The dog ate my homework.
• My homework was eaten (by the dog).
• Tracy was given my homework.
• A fork was eaten my homework.

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Why q-roles?

• We are trying to describe generalizations about
  language, meaning, the mapping to structure.
• We can imagine a lot of different kinds of roles.
  E.g., Patient could undergo a lot of different
  degrees of affectedness
• Touch (no change)
• Squeeze (temporary change)
• Break (fundamental change)

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Dowty on q-roles

• Fine-grain q-roles are really collections of
  entailments. E.g., does a volitional act, with
  intent, moves or changes externally. Many
  verbs share this entailment with their most
  prominent argument (Agent).
• Course-grain There are only these collections of
  q-roles, of two kinds (Proto-Agent,
  Proto-Patient). Which collection plays the more
  prominent role depends on the constitution of the
  collection (relatively).

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Proto-Agent, Proto-Patient

• Proto-Agent
• Volitional involvement
• Sentience/perception
• Causing event or change of state in another
  participant
• Movement relative to another participant
• Proto-Patient
• Undergoes change of state
• Incremental theme
• Causally affected by another participant
• Stationary relative to another participant
• Agent is a prototypical Proto-Agent. Experiencer,
  less so, Instrument less so. Patient is a
  prototypical Proto-Patient, Beneficiary less so.

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Why q-roles?

• We get some generalization power by considering
  q-roles, allowing us to define classes of verbs
  that share similar behavior.
• As an example, psychological verbs (admire,
  enjoy, amuse, frighten), which have an
  Experiencer and a Stimulus (or Percept).
• Two types, differing in the linking of arguments
  to syntactic positions.
• Point here we need to refer to q-roles to
  differentiate the two types.

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Psych verbs

• Type 1 (Subject-experiencer)
• admire, enjoy, fear, like, love, relish, savor
• V ltExperiencer, Stimulusgt
• Type 2 (Object-experiencer)
• amuse, entertain, frighten, interest, please,
  surprise, thrill
• V ltStimulus, Experiencergt

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q-roles and language description

• Saeed (in another Semantics textbook) gives the
  example of Lakhota, which morphologically marks
  Patient and Agent (hence we need the concepts to
  adequately describe the language).
• Agent subjects or objects wa-
• Patient subjects or objects ma-

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Active vs. Passive (Voice)

• Pat ate the sandwich
• The sandwich was eaten (by Pat)
• Passive demotes the Agent/Experiencer,
  promoting the next q-role to subject.
• eat V ltAgent, Patientgt (active)eaten V
  ltPatientgt (passive)
• The book was given to Pat. (theme)
• Pat was given a book. (recipient)
• The shot was heard round the world. (percept)
• The kids were frightened. (experiencer)
• The ghost was feared. (stimulus)

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Passive

• Generally, only the highest argument can be
  promoted to subject position in the passive.
• He sprayed paint on the wall. He sprayed the wall
  with paint.
• Paint was sprayed on the wall. The wall was
  sprayed with paint.
• The wall was sprayed paint on. Paint was
  sprayed the wall with.
• He loaded hay onto the truck. He loaded the truck
  with hay.
• Hay was loaded onto the truck. The truck was
  loaded with hay.
• The truck was loaded hay onto. Hay was loaded
  the truck with.
• He gave a book to Mary. He gave Mary a book.
• A book was given to Mary. Mary was given a book.
• Mary was given a book to. A book was given Mary.

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Passive usage

• Passives are often useful to background the
  subject (either to total omission or at least to
  a less prominent role).
• Pat took a trip to Providence yesterday.
• The police arrested him.
• He was arrested by the police.
• He sprayed the car with paint.
• The car was sprayed with paint.

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Middles

• Middles are sort of like passives the
  Agent/Experiencer is suppressed and the next
  q-role is promoted to subject. The verb does not
  take on a passive form (in English), and the
  construction is generally only available to
  describe a degree of success
• Pat broke the calculator.
• The calculator was broken.
• This calculator breaks easily.

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Adverbs

• How might we describe the meaning of an adverb?
  Say, loudly.
• The hooligan shouted loudly.
• Well, it seems a bit like this
• There was a shouting event.
• The hooligan was the Agent of that event.
• It was a loud event.
• Adverbs seem to modify events

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Adverb(-like thing)s as event modifiers

• The hooligan shouted loudly on Saturday atop the
  bench by the tree in the rain.
• This asserts the existence of an event that
• Is a shouting
• Has the hooligan as Agent
• Is loud
• Is on Saturday
• Is atop the bench
• Is by the tree
• Is in the rain
• Great for manner and temporal adverbs.

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Subject-oriented adverbs

• Zinédine intentionally hit Marco.
• Marco was intentionally hit by Zinédine.
• Its not the whole event that is intentional, it
  is somehow related to one of the participants.
  The subject? Well, yes. The Agent? Maybe.
• That second one seems a bit ambiguous

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Speaker-oriented adverbs

• Annoyingly, Pat was late.
• Predictably, Pat (stupidly) answered the
  questions (brilliantly)

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