Senarslan- Review and Questions
10/22/14
Larson, Chp.15 & 16
Verb phrases Complements and adjuncts
All verbs require a subject, and some verbs such as chase also requires OBJ NP.
Chase describes an action/event (theme) that requires at least two participants:
The chaser (agent) and the chase (patient.)
On the contrary some verbs need only one active participant who is the doer (agent) of an action/event, as in crawl.
Thematic Roles (θRoles)
Larson loves metaphors. Crediting Haegeman (1994), here he uses stage performance jargon in order to classify all the components in a sentence.
Provides a list of participant roles proposed by Haegeman (1994.)
Role Description
Agent Volitional initiator of action
Patient Object or individual undergoing action
Theme Object or individual moved by action
Goal Individual toward which action is directed
Source Object or individual from which something is moved by the
action, or from which the action originates
Experiencer Individual experiencing some event or state
Beneficiary Object or individual that benefits from some action or event
Location Place at which an individual, event, or state is situated
Instrument Secondary cause of event; an object or individual causing
some event through the action of an agent
Larson suggests that there is a close relationship between the verbs’ thematic roles assignments and their subcategory features e.g. (+/- phrasal) (loc) etc.
Adjunct
There are several adjunct modifiers, including: adjuncts of manner, frequency, duration, location, time, reason, and purpose .
Complement or Adjunct?
Here are few examples:
A student of Physics [complement]
He is a student of Physics: ‘He’ has 1 attribute
A student with long hair [adjunct]
He is a student with long hair: ‘He’ has 2 attributes
The question is how to tell a complement from an adjunct. For all we know, this is a very complex job. The most reliable way to separate complements and adjuncts is to use the constituency tests such as one-substitution and do so-substitution if such tests are possible.
Most of the current syntactic theories claim that complements and adjuncts differ syntactically and semantically in their relationships to the head.
How does making a distinction between missing complements and unmentioned adjuncts when analyzing constructions which contain internal gaps differ in the languages that is structurally different than English?
Consider the following sentence in Japanese for a CAD test: (Somers' ex.49)
Do so Test
a. Keiko ga kinoo hon o kaimasita; watasi mo asita soo simasu.
SUB yesterday book DO bought I too tomorrow so do.
Keiko bought a book yesterday, and I will do so tomorrow.
b. *Keiko ga kinoo hon o kaimasita; watasi mo zassi o soo simasita.
SUB yesterday book DO bought I too magazine DO so did.
Does this test can provide a consistent result (in Japanese, Turkish etc.)?