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“A Comparison of 'Thematic Role' Theories” “A comparison of ‘thematic role’ theories” Magister-Hausarbeit im Fach “Deutsche Sprache” dem Fachbereich Germanistik und Kunstwissenschaften der Philipps-Universität Marburg vorgelegt von Simon Kasper aus Alsfeld Marburg 2008 Contents List of figures 5 List of tables 6 List of abbreviations 7 Acknowledgements 9 1. Introduction: motive, goals, structure 10 2. Some history, general questions, and phenomena 15 2.1 Prerequisites for the “linking problem”: a brief historical sketch of 15 form-meaning correspondence theories 2.2 Thematic roles and their status in the theories 22 3. Challenging phenomena and related questions concerning 37 thematic roles 3.1 Split intransitivity 37 3.2 Passive/passivization 44 3.3 Locative alternation 47 3.4 Alternations with double object constructions 52 3.5 Psychological verbs 55 4. Thematic role theories 61 4.1 Discrete role solutions 61 4.1.1 Aspects, Principles & Parameters, Minimalism 62 4.1.2 Case Grammar 74 4.1.3 Relational Grammar 76 4.1.4 Cognitive Grammar 78 4.1.5 Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar 81 4.1.6 Lexical-Functional Grammar 82 4.2 Thematic role hierarchy solutions 85 4.2.1 Jackendoff (1972 and subsequent) 85 4.2.2 Construction Grammar 90 4.2.3 Lexical-Functional Grammar/Lexical Mapping Theory 93 4.2.4 Principles & Parameters, Minimalism 96 4.2.5 Optimality Theory 101 4.3 Generalized thematic role solutions 102 4.3.1 Role and Reference Grammar and related theories 103 4.3.1.1 Role and Reference Grammar 103 4.3.1.2 Kibrik (1997) 108 4.3.2 Dowty & successors 109 4.3.2.1 Dowty (1989, 1991) 109 4.3.2.2 Baker (1996, 1997) 113 4.3.2.3 Ackerman/Moore (1998, 2001) 114 4.3.3 Primus (1999 and subsequent) 116 4.4 Feature decomposition as solution 121 4.4.1 Wunderlich (2000 and subsequent) 121 4.5 Grand summary 124 5. Some considerations about linking without thematic roles 128 Notes 140 Glossary 148 References 158 Zusammenfassung/German Abstract 176 Eidesstattliche Erklärung 181 Figures No. Figure page 2.1 Bouchard’s conceptual structure 27 2.2 Wunderlich’s LDG architecture 28 2.3 The role of argument structure in theories of grammar 30 2.4 Main stages in the development of thematic roles from Gruber on 32 4.1 Actor-Undergoer Hierarchy 104 4.2 Principal and patientive hyperroles as extension-strategies in accusative 109 languages 5.1 Centrality of the verb in syntax 128 5.2 Abstract representation of conceptual composition 132 5.3 Scheme for argument-linking in German 134 6.1 Architecture of the Aspects theory 148 6.2 Architecture of the Principles and Parameters theory 155 Tables No. Table page 1.1 “Discrete” thematic role theories to be discussed 12 1.2 Thematic role “hierarchy” theories to be discussed 13 1.3 “Generalized” thematic role theories to be discussed 13 1.4 “Feature decomposition” theory (of thematic roles) to be discussed 14 2.1 Pānini’s morphological cases for Sanskrit 16 2.2 Pānini’s Karaka roles for Sanskrit 16 2.3 Blake’s immaterial cases assigned by verbs 18 2.4 Blake’ material cases assigned by verbs 19 2.5 Canonical thematic roles and prototypical definitions 25 3.1 Some semantic criteria for split intransitivity until the 1980s 38 3.2 Zaenen’s (1988) criteria for split intransitivity in Dutch 42 3.3 Presumed distribution of split intransitivity for English and German 43 3.4 Approximate conceptualizations of the locative alternation with the 51 parameters “direct objecthood” and “definiteness of the postverbal NPs” 3.5 Classification of psychological verbs 59 4.1 The ADOC and its passives in RG 78 4.2 DeLancey’s (2000, 6) predicate types 80 4.3 DeLancey’s (2000, 7) environments for thematic roles 80 4.4 Proto-role entailments and argument selection for split intransitivity 109 4.5 Proto-role entailments and argument selection for the ADOC 110 4.6 Proto-role entailments and argument selection for the locative alternation 111 4.7 Proto-role entailments and argument selection for psychological verbs 111 4.8 Optimal case patterns for psychological verbs in German 119 5.1 Implications among the Conceptual Units 131 5.2 Conceptual Units and case-assignment 135 Abbreviations A agentive (deep case) LDG Lexical Decomposition Grammar acc Accusative LFG Lexical-Functional Grammar ADOC Alternation with LMT Lexical Mapping double object Theory constructions ag Agent MIN Minimalism arg Argument nom Nominative ASP Argument selection NP Noun phrase principle ASP Aspects-theory O Objective (deep case) AUH Actor-Undergoer OBJ Object Hierarchy BEC BECOME OBL Oblique CG Cognitive Grammar OT Optimality Theory ConG Construction Grammar P-A Proto-agent CP Complementizer pat patient phrase CS Conceptual structure PP Prepositional phrase D Dative (deep case) P-P Proto-patient dat Dative P-R Proto-recipient DU Deep unaccusativity P&P Principles and Parameters theory e (Sub-)event PRED/pred Predicate exp Experiencer PSA Privileged syntactic argument F Factitive (deep case) rec Recipient go Goal RG Relational Grammar HPSG Head-Driven Phrase RRG Role and Reference Structure Grammar Grammar hr Higher role RUTAH Relativized →UTAH I Instrumental S Sentence IP Inflectional phrase stim Stimulus SU Surface unaccusativity UAH Universal Alignment Hypothesis SUBJ Subject UTAH Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis th Theme VP Verbal phrase TH Thematic Hierarchy XP, YP, ZP Phrase type of any kind THC Thematic Hierarchy Condition Acknowledgements This work could not have been developed and written without the support of several persons to which I’d like to express my gratitude. First, I would like to thank my family, especially my parents and my sister and brother for their immense, permanent and never-ending faith in my skills which they always have furthered in any conceivable way. Moreover, I thank Hanni Schnell for her love, patience, for giving me the mental and idealistic strength to overcome any obstacles, and for her constant critical commentaries and suggestions concerning my studies which keep me from being “too content”. Thanks to Volker Zähme not only for always intellectually inspiring me… Furthermore, special thanks go to Matthias Schlesewsky without whom the success of my studies would not have been possible and who always has been immensely patient with my sometimes overdosed motivation. Further thanks go to Ina Bornkessel for her helpfulness and for giving me the possibility to talk at the Max-Planck-Institute for Neuro- and Cognitive Sciences in Leipzig. I am also grateful to Jürgen Erich Schmidt for his academic furtherance which encourages me in doing what I want to do: linguistics. 9 1. Introduction: motive, goals, structure This work is crucially based on the idea that regularities of syntactic structure1 are semantically motivated. It is thus a departure from the main ideas of Noam Chomsky's (1957) Syntactic Structures in which form has been declared independent of meaning and therefore was considered autonomous. Nevertheless, this separation of syntactic from semantic structure which the Chomskyan scientific revolution has brought about is a necessary precondition for this work and the research that has led to it. It presupposes the insight that syntactic constructions2 can be described independently from other representations of a grammar. On the other hand the idea is rejected that syntactic constructions can be explained without reference to semantics or discourse-pragmatics. The main topic of this work is to regard the relationship between form and meaning on the sentential level, i.e. between syntax and semantics. More specifically, it deals with the explanation of this relationship. One notion that has become central with respect to this attempt is that of “thematic roles”*3. Since the invention4 of those numerous theories involving this notion have been developed and today there is such a huge amount of literature on the topic, that a rather concise work with so little time for preparation like this can hardly cope with it. It cannot do justice to all of the theories. With these restrictions in mind the goals of this work can be formulated. The most original and most influential theories of thematic roles will be presented and discussed. Since the research on thematic roles started well back in the 1960s, the historical developments will be taken into account as well as the breadth of theories in the present. The original theory of Chomsky has been developed further in different directions; others have distanced themselves from the Chomskyan theories, so that there is a plurality of accounts. Most of these are embedded in larger theories of grammar. But there are also thematic role theories which have been developed independently of theories of grammar. These will also be discussed. The discussion of the theories is thought to be an examination of their explanatory potential. This will be measured with regard to several language phenomena taken from English and German. (It is a trivial fact that giving an explanation for language data is the purpose of every theory of thematic roles.) One difficulty in presenting the theories is the terminology that is used. It is unavoidable that while discussing a particular theory its own terminology must be used. In any case unclarity should be avoided. In passages that are neutral with respect to any theory the use of linguistic terminology will be clarified. In addition, there is a glossary consisting of the most 10 important terms that are used throughout the discussion. The terms in the glossary will be marked with “*” in the text and in the list of abbreviations. The work is structured as follows: In the next chapter (ch. 2) I will present some theoretical questions concerning thematic roles including a sketch of the historical developments that have led to their invention and institution.
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