DOCUMENT RESUME ED 338 059 FL 019 720 AUTHOR Van Valin, Robert D., Jr. TITLE Semantic Roles and Grammatical Relations. PUB DATE Jul 90 NOTE 9p.; In: Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, Number Twenty-nine. California, Stanford University, 1990. p156-163. PUB TYPE Reports - Evaluative/Feasibility (142) -- Speeches/Conference Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Child Language; Contrastive Linguistics; *Grammar; *Language Acquisition; Language Research; Linguistic Theory; *Semantics; Uncommonly Taught Languages ABSTRACT The nature of semantic roles and grammatical relations are explored from the perspective of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). It is proposed that unraveling the relational aspects of grammar involves the recognition that semantic roles fall into two types, thematic relations and macroroles, and that grammatical relations are not universal and are not constituted in the same way in every language in which they exist. The concepts of thematic relations, semantic macroroles, and grammatical relations are explained, and evidence :DIf cross-linguistic variation in grammatical relations is presented from a variety of languages including Acehnese, Zapotec, Walpiri, English, and Dyirbal. Implications for langua7e acquisition and the analysis of child language are also discussed. (MSE) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original dc-Jument. *********************************************************************** PRCLD 29 (19990) "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MAT RIAL HAS ElE GRANTED BY U.S. DEPARTMENT OP EDUCATION Mc* Educshow Romorth srd Imeromeni ED ATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMMION CENTER (ERIC) This ftcument hos Dogn IsproduclId mewed from Iris 13011110n 01 Ofgsnisslidn Onpinsling ih C3 Mind' changeS hens been 'Ws to improve SEMANTIC ROLES AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES fltatOductipn dustily INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)" Potott o v(Pyto opinions *Wed in INS dOeu merit do not necellSiddy feldSOnt otticiSI Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. OE RI position do WKS University of California, Davis 1. Introduction' Concepts like `agent' and 'subject' figure prominently in discussions of child language and acquisition, and yet there are a number of important issues lurking in these terms. 'Agent' and `patient', for example, are often used in two distinct senses: on some occasions, they are meant literally us the wilful instigator of an action and as the entity undergoing a change of state or condition, and on other occasions, they are used to denote the two primary arguments of a transitive predication, with 'agent' and 'patient' being cover terms of groups of distinct semantic roles which seem to function as 'logical subject' and 'logical object' of the verb. Grammatical relations, on the other hand, are often taken as unproblematdcally given. In this paper the nature of semantic roles and grammatical rela- tions will be explored, as well as their interaction in language development. These issues will be investigated from the perspective of Role and Reference Grammar [RRG].2 1 Semantic roles Most syntactic theories assume some notion of semantic roles [SRs] but do not deal with basic questions which have remained unanswered since the original proposals of Fillmore and Gruber: what is the correct universal inventory of roles? what governs which role(s) a particular verb takes? Furthermore, there is the fundamental issue of the relation of SRs to GRs: is it universally predictable? The answers to the questions have important consequences for language acquisition, for the greater the degree of ar- bitrariness in the relationship between verbs and role(s) or between SRs and GRs, the more difficult the task facing the child is. The first step that RRG takes in answering these ques- tions is to posit two types of SRs, corresponding roughly to the two senses of 'agent' and 'patient' mentioned in §1. They are termed 'thematic relations' and 'semantic macroroles'. 2.1 Thematic relations The question of the inventory of thematic relations [ThRs] in linguistic theory cannot be answered without a clarificadon of their function. In Fillmore's original theory, they had two functions: (1) they played a central role in the representation of the lexical meaning of verbs, e.g. 'open [(A) (I) 0]', and (2) they functioned in the statement of syntactic rules. Since most contemporary theories assume that syntax is auton- omous, the second function is no longer relevant in them. ThRs serve only as a means of lexical representation in these theories, and it is this function that has led to disputes regar- ding the number of roles; if ThRs are representations of lexical meaning, then a large num- ber will be required to express the great variety of verbal semantic contrasts. RRG differs from other syntactic theories with respect to both of these points. It denies the autonomy of syntax, and therefore SRs play a direct role in syntax. On the other hand, ThRs have no direct role in the representation of lexical meaning. Rather, this is accomp- lished by means of the system of lexical decomposition put forth in Dowty 1979. Four classes of verbs are proposed, based on their inherent temporal properties or Akrionsart: states, activities, achievements, and accomplishments. Dowty provides syntactic and se- mantic tests for determining the class of a verb (see Dowty 1979:60). In the RRG system, states and activities are taken as primitive, and achievements and accomplishments are de- II would like to thank Nancy Budwig for organizing the session on 'agency' and inviting me to participate. This work v.as supported in part by a UC Davis Faculty Research Grant. 2See Van Valin 1990 for the most recent presentation of the theory, also Foley & Van Valin 1984; all of ga- Z the aspects of RRG discussed in this paper are explicated in detail in these references. 156 2 BEST COPYAVAILABLE II 157 rived from the basic types by means ofa limited set of operators and connectives. Examples of the decomposition are given in 1: (a) isa state, (b) an achievement, (c an accomplishment, and (d) an activity. (1) a. The lamp is broken. broken' (the lamp) b. The lamp broke. BECOME broken' (the lamp) c. Bill broke the lamp. (do' (Bill)] CAUSE [BECOME broken' (the lamp)] d. The lamp is shaking shake' (the lamp) These representations are significant because first, they representa fundamentally different approach to lexical representation from lists of ThRs, and second, instead ofthe semantic representation of a verb being based on ThRs, ThRsare derived from the decompositions. Following Jackendoff 1976, ThRs are defined in terms ofargument positions in lexical representations, e.g. 'patient' is the single argument ofa state predicate (the lamp in la,b,c). Thus, in a theory in which the primary role of ThRs is in thesyntax and not in the lexicon, only a small number of distinct ThRs need be posited.Moreover, because there are syntactic and semantic tests (which make no reference to ThRs) which determine the Aktionsart class of a verb and because the ThRs ofa verb are function of its lexical representation, which is a function of its class, the assignment of ThRsto verbs in RRG is independently motivated. The notion of 'agent' is generally consideredone of the most important ThRs, but it is not in fact clear that it is of the same nature as the other ThRs. If ThRsare a lexical property of verbs, then tney should be invariable in the dilerentcontexts in which a verb (with a specific Aktionsart) is used. But this isnot the case, as the examples in 2 show, (2) a. John (accidentally) killed his neighbor. b. John (*accidentally) murdered his neighbor. It is often assumed that both kill and murder takean agent argument, but if this is the case, then they both should not cooccur with an adverb like accidentally which contradicts the meaning of intended action which isa central component of agency. This prediction is correct only with murder; kill is compatible with a non-intentional, hence non-agentive, interpretation of its subject. This suggests strongly that the subject of kill,unlike that of murder, is not an agent but rather is what in RRGis called an EFFECTOR, the instigating, causing, effecting participant in a situation (Bill in lc); this ThR isneutral with respect to intent and control. However, given that John klled his neighborcan be interpreted with John acting volitionally and intentionally, where does this interpretationof the subject as an agent come from, if not from the lexical semantic properties of the verb? It has long been argued that one of theways to differentiate entailments which are inherent semantic properties of lexical items from pragmatic entailments is through the defeasibilitytest: if the meaning is defeasible or cancellable, then it isnot an inherent semantic property but a pragmatic implication. The defeasibility of of the agentive interpretation ofthe subject in 2a indicates that it does not follow from the lexical meaning of kill,whereas the fact that it cannot be cancelled with murder signals that it is an inherent part of the verb's meaning. Holisky 1987 argues that for most activity and accomplishmentverbs, the interpretation of their subject as agentive is a pragmatic implicature, basedon the principle that human effec- tors are normally interpreted as agents, unless there issome explicit element (like acciden- tally in 2) that blocks the implicatare. Thus 'agent'is not really a distinct ThR like effec- tor, experiencer, theme, or patient; rather, it isan additional interpretation which is added to one of the basic ThRs. The subject of murder in 2b is an effector which obligatorilyre- ceives an agentive reading, while the subject of kill in 2a isan effector which optionally 158 gets this interpretation. Similarly, the subject of see is an experiencer, while that of look at is an agentive experiencer. 2.2 Semantic macroroles It was noted in §1 that 'agent' and 'patient'are often used to refer broadly to the two primary arguments in a transitive predication, theterms being ap- plied to the arguments of both kill andsee in this sense, even though the ThRs of tnese verbs are not the same.