Understanding Semantic Roles
Unit 6
Agent: The initiator/doer of the action (‘David cooked the chicken’)
Experiencer: The entity that feels or perceives something (‘David saw the dog’)
Patient: The entity undergoing the effect of some action and some change of state (‘David cooked the chicken’) - Sometimes used interchangeably with theme.
Theme: The entity which is moved by an action (‘Fred threw the rock’), whose location is described (‘The book is in the library’), or is experienced or perceived (‘David saw the dog’) - Sometimes used interchangeably with patient.
Beneficiary: The entity for whose benefit an event took place / the entity which is intended to possess the theme but may actually not do so. (‘Jones made a new kennel for the dog’)
Goal: The entity towards which motion takes place (‘The ball rolled into the pocket’)
Recipient: The entity into whose possession a theme moves - a subclass of goal for verbs involving a change of possession: (’Linda sent the photos to her girlfriend’)
Source: The entity from which motion takes place (‘The plane came back from Kinshasa’)
Location: The place where the action occurs (‘The jug remained on the table’)
Instrument: The object with which an action is performed (‘They signed the treaty with the same pen’)
Sample Answers:
(1) a. Amber considers the problem. b. *The problem considers easily.
The pair in (1) shows that the verb consider does not participate in the middle alternation, as it allows the transitive pattern NPagent Verb NPpatient (1a), but not the middle construction NPpatient Verb AdvP/PP (1b), which, if it were possible, would convey a generic, habitual, or potential interpretation.
The reason for the impossibility/ungrammaticality/deviance of the middle construction with the verb consider is that it fails to satisfy the affectedness constraint on the middle construction because considering a problem does not change the nature or properties of the problem, which is thus not affected. If Levin’s (1993) event structure analysis is assumed, the middle construction is impossible with consider because the event structure of this verb is simply [x ACT ON y] and thus lacks the BECOME sub-event on which the middle construction focuses.
(19) a. The boxer punched his opponent’s chin. b. The boxer punched his opponent on the chin.
The sentences in (19) reveal that the verb punch participates in the ‘Body-part possessor ascension alternation’, as it allows both transitive variant NPagent Verb [NP’s body-part]theme, and the ‘Body-part possessor ascension construction’ NPagent Verb [NPtheme] [on the body-part].
The body-part possessor ascension construction is possible here because the verb punch has an ACT sub-event that obligatorily involves contact, which is the condition needed for this alternation to be possible.
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