THEMATIC ROLE ASSIGNMENT IN ENGLISH SENTENCES: A QUICK GLANCE AT AN INTERFACE BETWEEN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eni Maharsi
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Role Assignment

This paper examines the role of elements of English sentences by employing the approach ofthematic role assignment. The emphasis is on how the positioning of words and phrases insyntactic structure helps determine the roles that the referents of NPs play in the situationdescribed by the sentences. The results reveal that the position of an NP’s determines itsthematic role and. There is a relevance between deep syntactic structure and the assignmentof thematic roles for every NP in the sentence.

scholarly journals Is children's acquisition of the passive a staged process? Evidence from six- and nine-year-olds' production of passives

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 991-1016 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHERINE MESSENGER ◽  
HOLLY P. BRANIGAN ◽  
JANET F. McLEAN
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Strong Tendency ◽  
Syntactic Priming ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Constituent Structure ◽  
Role Mapping ◽  
Transitive Actions

ABSTRACTWe report a syntactic priming experiment that examined whether children's acquisition of the passive is a staged process, with acquisition of constituent structure preceding acquisition of thematic role mappings. Six-year-olds and nine-year-olds described transitive actions after hearing active and passive prime descriptions involving the same or different thematic roles. Both groups showed a strong tendency to reuse in their own description the syntactic structure they had just heard, including well-formed passives after passive primes, irrespective of whether thematic roles were repeated between prime and target. However, following passive primes, six-year-olds but not nine-year-olds also produced reversed passives, with well-formed constituent structure but incorrect thematic role mappings. These results suggest that by six, children have mastered the constituent structure of the passive; however, they have not yet mastered the non-canonical thematic role mapping. By nine, children have mastered both the syntactic and thematic dimensions of this structure.

Applied Objects and the Syntax–Semantics Interface

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
KYLE JERRO
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Morphological Properties ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Functional Head ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
Symmetry Properties

This paper investigates the syntax–semantics interface within the domain of the realization of applied objects in Bantu languages, and I argue that the syntactic structure and semantic contribution of a given argument-licensing functional head (here, the applicative) do not covary. Specifically, I show that in principle, both high and low applicatives can (and should) be available with any type of applicative and not tied to a specific semantics (such as transfer of possession) or thematic role, as proposed in earlier work. Furthermore, I reject the centrality of thematic roles as a component of grammar that determines the grammatical function of applied objects, and I propose instead a typology of Bantu applied objects based on their semantic and morphological properties. This approach makes several predictions about applied objects: (i) syntactic and semantic diagnostics for high and low applicatives need not pattern together, (ii) syntactic asymmetry (such as c-command) can arise for applied objects which pattern symmetrically with other diagnostics (such as passivization), and (iii) the type of an applied object does not universally capture symmetry properties cross-linguistically. The view put forward in this paper provides a framework that can better capture this type of variation with object symmetry in Bantu languages as well as language-internal facts about applied objects; more generally, this paper sheds light on the nature of the syntax–semantic interface by showing that the meaning of a functional head is not necessarily determined by its syntactic position.

scholarly journals On the Impact of Case and Prosody on Thematic Role Disambiguation: An Eye-Tracking Study on Hungarian

2020 ◽  
pp. 002383092097470
Author(s):  
Gábor Müller ◽  
Emese Bodnár ◽  
Stavros Skopeteas ◽  
Julia Marina Kröger
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
High Reliability ◽  
Experimental Paradigm ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Role Assignment ◽  
Eye Fixations ◽  
Crucial Difference ◽  
The Impact

Thematic-role assignment is influenced by several classes of cues during sentence comprehension, ranging from morphological exponents of syntactic relation such as case and agreement to probabilistic cues such as prosody. The effect of these cues cross-linguistically varies, presumably reflecting their language-specific robustness in signaling thematic roles. However, language-specific frequencies are not mapped onto the cue strength in a one-to-one fashion. The present article reports two eye-tracking studies on Hungarian examining the interaction of case and prosody during the processing of case-unambiguous (Experiment 1) and case-ambiguous (Experiment 2) clauses. Eye fixations reveal that case is a strong cue for thematic role assignment, but stress only enhances the effect of case in case-unambiguous clauses. This result differs from findings reported for Italian and German in which case initial stress reduces the expectation for subject-first clauses. Furthermore, the sentence comprehension facts are not explained by corpus frequencies in Hungarian. After considering an array of hypotheses about the roots of cross-linguistic variation, we conclude that the crucial difference lies in the high reliability/availability of case cues in Hungarian in contrast to the further languages examined within this experimental paradigm.

scholarly journals Representasi Argumen Gerak Ruang Bahasa Melayu Berdasarkan Teori Struktur Konseptual

Jurnal Bahasa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-381
Author(s):  
Nurul Jamilah Rosly ◽  
◽  
Maslida Yusof ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Structure ◽  
Spatial Motion ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Structure Representation ◽  
Basic Formula ◽  
Lexical Items

Motion is understood as a change from one location to another. Therefore, this study focuses on spatial motion consisting of directional, extensional, state and causative motion. This study utilizes data from the Pangkalan Data Korpus Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka database in Malaysia for its study samples. The analysis employs Jackendoff ’s (1997 & 2011) Theory of Conceptual Structure for its framework. The mapping of these arguments comprises three main stages, namely mapping to conceptual structure representation, mapping to conceptual tree diagrams and mapping to thematic roles. The results show that spatial motion is present in the [Event] and [States] functions that carry the basic formula [[[MOTION [x [Event] [Object] [Path] [Place]]]. The findings show that the lexical items balik, berlari, tinggal, terletak, berada, bunuh, paksa, benar and tolong have their own representation of arguments involving constituents such as [Event], [States], [Object] [Path] [Place] [Event] REASON], [NO Causative], [TRUE Causative] and [HELP Causative]. For the mapping stage in the thematic role, the item involved is the role of Actor, Theme, Goal, Source, Agent and Beneficiary (-). Accordingly, this study shows an adequate systematic representation of the conceptual structure, particularly in the spatial motion domain in the Malay language.

scholarly journals Representasi Argumen Gerak Ruang Bahasa Melayu Berdasarkan Teori Struktur Konseptual

Jurnal Bahasa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-381
Author(s):  
Nurul Jamilah Rosly ◽  
◽  
Maslida Yusof ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Structure ◽  
Spatial Motion ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Structure Representation ◽  
Basic Formula ◽  
Lexical Items

Motion is understood as a change from one location to another. Therefore, this study focuses on spatial motion consisting of directional, extensional, state and causative motion. This study utilizes data from the Pangkalan Data Korpus Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka database in Malaysia for its study samples. The analysis employs Jackendoff’s (1997 & 2011) Theory of Conceptual Structure for its framework. The mapping of these arguments comprises three main stages, namely mapping to conceptual structure representation, mapping to conceptual tree diagrams and mapping to thematic roles. The results show that spatial motion is present in the [Event] and [States] functions that carry the basic formula [[[MOTION [x [Event] [Object] [Path] [Place]]]. The findings show that the lexical items balik, berlari, tinggal, terletak, berada, bunuh, paksa, benar and tolong have their own representation of arguments involving constituents such as [Event], [States], [Object] [Path] [Place] [Event] REASON], [NO Causative], [TRUE Causative] and [HELP Causative]. For the mapping stage in the thematic role, the item involved is the role of Actor, Theme, Goal, Source, Agent and Beneficiary (-). Accordingly, this study shows an adequate systematic representation of the conceptual structure, particularly in the spatial motion domain in the Malay language.

scholarly journals How broad are thematic roles? Evidence from structural priming

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayden Ziegler ◽  
Jesse Snedeker
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Amazon Mechanical Turk ◽  
Structural Priming ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Total N ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
Theoretical Question ◽  
Prepositional Object ◽  
Lexical Content

Verbs that are similar in meaning tend to occur in the same syntactic structures. For example, give and hand, which denote transfer of possession, both appear in the prepositional-object construction: “The child gave / handed the ball to the dog.” We can call the child a “giver” in one case and a “hander” in the other, or we can refer to her more generally as the agent, or doer of the action. Similarly, the dog can be called the recipient, and the ball, the theme. These generalized notions of agent, recipient, and theme are known as thematic roles. An important theoretical question for linguists and psycholinguists is what the set of thematic roles is. Are there a small number of very broad roles, perhaps with each one mapping onto a single canonical syntactic position? Or are there many distinct roles, several mapping to the same syntactic position but conveying subtly different meanings? We investigate this question across eleven structural priming experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk (total N=2,914), asking whether speakers treat the thematic roles recipient and destination (i.e., location or spatial goal) as interchangeable, suggesting the broad role of goal, or distinct, suggesting two separate roles. To do so, we look for priming between dative sentences (e.g., “The man gave the ball to the dog”), which have a recipient role (dog), and locative sentences (e.g., “The man loaded hay onto the wagon”), which instead have a destination role (wagon). Our pattern of findings confirms that thematic role mappings can be primed independent of syntactic structure, lexical content, and animacy. However, we find that this priming does not extend from destinations to recipients (or vice versa), providing evidence that these two roles are distinct.

scholarly journals Lexically-mediated syntactic priming effects in comprehension: Sources of facilitation

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (9) ◽  
pp. 2176-2196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen M Tooley ◽  
Martin J Pickering ◽  
Matthew J Traxler
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Target Sentence ◽  
Syntactic Priming ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Role Assignment ◽  
Mediated Priming ◽  
Structural Processing

The nature of the facilitation occurring when sentences share a verb and syntactic structure (i.e., lexically-mediated syntactic priming) has not been adequately addressed in comprehension. In four eye-tracking experiments, we investigated the degree to which lexical, syntactic, thematic, and verb form repetition contribute to facilitated target sentence processing. Lexically-mediated syntactic priming was observed when primes and targets shared a verb and abstract syntactic structure, regardless of the ambiguity of the prime. In addition, repeated thematic role assignment resulted in syntactic priming (to a lesser degree), and verb form repetition facilitated lexical rather than structural processing. We conclude that priming in comprehension involves lexically associated abstract syntactic representations, and facilitation of verb and thematic role processes. The results also indicate that syntactic computation errors during prime processing are not necessary for lexically-mediated priming to occur during target processing. This result is inconsistent with an error-driven learning account of lexically-mediated syntactic priming effects.

scholarly journals Children's online use of word order and morphosyntactic markers in Tagalog thematic role assignment: an eye-tracking study

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 533-555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rowena GARCIA ◽  
Jens ROESER ◽  
Barbara HÖHLE
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Tracking Data ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Role Assignment ◽  
Heuristic Strategies

AbstractWe investigated whether Tagalog-speaking children incrementally interpret the first noun as the agent, even if verbal and nominal markers for assigning thematic roles are given early in Tagalog sentences. We asked five- and seven-year-old children and adult controls to select which of two pictures of reversible actions matched the sentence they heard, while their looks to the pictures were tracked. Accuracy and eye-tracking data showed that agent-initial sentences were easier to comprehend than patient-initial sentences, but the effect of word order was modulated by voice. Moreover, our eye-tracking data provided evidence that, by the first noun phrase, seven-year-old children looked more to the target in the agent-initial compared to the patient-initial conditions, but this word order advantage was no longer observed by the second noun phrase. The findings support language processing and acquisition models which emphasize the role of frequency in developing heuristic strategies (e.g., Chang, Dell, & Bock, 2006).

scholarly journals Syntactic language processing: ERP lesion data on the role of the basal ganglia

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 1053-1060 ◽  
Author(s):  
SONJA A. KOTZ ◽  
STEFAN FRISCH ◽  
D. YVES VON CRAMON ◽  
ANGELA D. FRIEDERICI
Keyword(s):  
Basal Ganglia ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Neurologically Impaired ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Verb Argument Structure ◽  
Extended Duration

The role of the basal ganglia in syntactic language processing was investigated with event-related brain potentials in fourteen neurologically impaired patients. Seven of these patients had basal ganglia lesions while 7 other patients primarily had lesions of the left temporo–parietal region excluding the basal ganglia. All patients listened to sentences that were either correct or included a verb argument structure violation. In previous experiments this type of violation elicited a biphasic pattern of an N400–P600 complex in young healthy participants. While the N400 may result from incorrect semantic-thematic role assignment, the P600 reflects the fact that verb information does not license the syntactic structure at present. Results of the patient experiment revealed a double dissociation: patients with left temporo–parietal lesions only show a P600, whereas patients with lesions of the basal ganglia showed no P600, but a negativity with extended duration that resembled an N400. The latter pattern not only confirms previous reports that the basal ganglia modulate the P600 but extends these results by showing that the N400 as a late semantic–thematic integration process appears partially modulated by the basal ganglia. (JINS, 2003, 9, 1053–1060.)

scholarly journals Thematic role and grammatical function affect pronoun production

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofiana-Iulia Lindemann ◽  
Stanca Mada ◽  
Laura Sasu ◽  
Madalina Matei
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Dimensional Approach ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Null Pronouns ◽  
Grammatical Subject ◽  
Overt Pronouns ◽  
Null Pronoun

According to different approaches to pronoun processing, in pro-drop languages, null pronouns are interpreted as referring back to the grammatical subject and topical referent, while overt pronouns are usually interpreted as coreferring with a non-subject and non-topical antecedent. The present study investigates whether thematic role and grammatical function impact (overt and null) pronoun production in Romania. Results show that we do not encounter a clear division of labour between the two pronoun forms triggered by syntactic structure alone and that thematic roles matter as well. The findings support a multi-dimensional approach, suggesting that different referential forms are constrained by different factors.

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