Theta role

The term theta roles is often used indiscriminately alongside the terms “ thematic relations ”, “ semantic roles ” or “ case roles ” .

In generative grammar , especially rule and attachment theory and the standard theory of transformational grammar , a theta role or θ role is the formal means of mapping a syntactic argument structure (the number and type of noun phrases ) required by a particular verb becomes.

For example, the verb “to put” requires three arguments: Eva (1) puts the flowers (2) on the table (3). It is said that the verb “to pose” “assigns” three theta roles. This fact is recorded in a theta grid that is assigned to the lexical entry of this verb. The correspondence between the theta grid and the actual sentence is made by a filter known as the theta criterion . Early versions of a theta criterion can be found in Fillmore (1968), who referred to theta roles as " cases ", and Jeffrey Gruber (1965).

Theta roles and thematic relations

The terms “ thematic relations ”, “ semantic roles ” or “ case roles ” are used as synonyms for the term theta roles . The reason is that theta roles are often referred to as the most important thematic relation that is expressed in them. A significant theta role is the primary or external argument. Typically this role is assigned to the noun phrase that expresses the agent of the action, so that the theta role is simply referred to as "agent". Theta roles and thematic relations differ in a number of points:

• In thematic relations, semantic relations of the noun phrases to the action or to the state are expressed, which are expressed by the verb. Theta roles, on the other hand, are a syntactic concept that regulates the number, type and position of mandatory elements. Take the following sentence as an example: Maria ate the apple . The theta roles determine the following: There are two arguments ( Mary and the apple ); Mary must be able to want to (do) something; she must be able to carry out the action (neither would apply to objects, for example); the apple must be something edible. The theta roles thus describe the number and type of arguments; they are used to “index” an argument. The actual semantic content of the argument roll, on the other hand, is described by the thematic relation.
• Not all theoretical approaches use theta roles. These are largely limited to Chomsky's generative grammar and lexical-functional grammar . Numerous other grammar models, on the other hand, make direct use of thematic relations.
• Only arguments that depend on the verb carry theta roles, but not adjuncts , even if they are prepositional phrases such as “on Friday” or noun phrases such as “yesterday”. In contrast, almost all noun phrases express thematic relations.
• An argument can only have one theta role, but can express several thematic relations. Example: Eva gave Peter the ball . Here Eva expresses two thematic relations, agent (agent) and source (source). Eve's theta role, on the other hand, is only the external (agent) role.
• Thematic relations are properties of nouns and noun phrases. Theta roles can be assigned to any argument, including embedded sentences, which is not possible with thematic roles.

Theta grid and theta criterion

Theta roles are recorded in the theta grid of a verb. One way to represent a theta grid is to use a list enclosed in square brackets; the argument with the external theta role is mentioned first and underlined. The grid for the verb “give” is: \ < agent , topic, goal \>. Another possibility of representation is a tabular illustration.

The theta criterion is a rule of direction and attachment theory that enforces a 1: 1 correspondence of arguments and theta roles. It goes like this:

The theta criterion : each argument has one and only one theta role, and each theta role is assigned to one and only one argument.

Although this is often not mentioned explicitly, it should be noted that adjuncts are excluded from the theta criterion.

Thematic hierarchies

In typological studies across individual languages , linguists in the tradition of relational grammar such as David M. Perlmutter and Paul Postal (1984) have observed that certain thematic relations and theta roles often occupy certain positions in the sentence. In unmarked sentences, for example, one finds the agent role in the subject position, the subject in the object position and the target role in the position of the indirect object . The Universal Alignment Hypothesis (UAH) is based on this observation , according to which the thematic relations are distributed to the argument position according to the following hierarchy:

Agent <Theme <Experiencer <Others.

Mark C. Baker (1988) incorporated this idea into rule and attachment theory in the form of the Universal Theta Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH) . Ken Hale and Samuel Jay Keyser (1993) and Hale & Keyser (2002) take a different approach ; here there are no underlying theta roles or even thematic relations. Instead, the interpretative element of the grammar identifies the semantic role of an argument based on its position in the tree diagram.

Some terms (further under semantic role ):

• Agent ,agentof the performers or actors,
• Patiens ,patientthe living being that is changed by the action. Object affected in an inanimate state,
• Recipient ,recipientthe (animated) recipient,
• Beneficiary , beneficiary the beneficiary of an action, distinguished from the maleficent, who is harmed by the action,
• Topic , theme or effective object , is the entity that is influenced by the action, but not changed, possibly moved, etc.
• Location source , goal , path ,
• Experiencer , experiencer theone who feels or also perceives or thinks,
• Stimulus , stimulus the object in relation to which something is felt, usually also for an object that is perceived,
• Comitative the one with whom something happens in common.

Argument structure in other formal approaches

Lexical-functional grammar (LFG)

The lexical functional grammar (see Falk (2001) and Bresnan (2001)) with respect to the theta rolling the batch Chomskys most similar. The LFG, however, uses three different layers of structure to represent the relations or functions of arguments: theta structure, a-structure (argument structure) and f-structure (functional structure), which expresses grammatical relationships. These layers are linked with one another by complicated “linking rules”. Thematic relations in the theta structure are mapped to a number of positions in the a structure, which are linked to the features [± o] (roughly "object") and [± r] ("restricted", which is an explicit one Marking by a preposition or a case means). These features then determine how the arguments are mapped to certain grammatical functions in the sentence.

Head-driven phrase structure grammar (HPSG)

The head-driven phrase structure grammar (head-driven phrase structure grammar, HPSG), provide an introduction to Say Vazov & Bender (2005), used by itself no theta roles, but shares their properties in two different feature structures. The number and category are indicated by a characteristic called ARG-STR. This characteristic consists of an ordered list of categories that must appear with the respective verb or predicate. For example, the ARG-STR of the verb “thank you (for something)” is <NP, NP, PP>: Eva (NP) thanks Hans (NP) for his cooperation (PP). The semantic part of these theta roles (i.e. the thematic relations) is handled in a special set of semantic restrictions (RESTR). These typically express the semantic properties more directly than thematic relations. For the verb “give”, for example, the arguments are not agent, topic and goal, but giver, given and recipient.

Approaches that avoid theta roles

Some approaches such as the construction grammar and the Simpler Syntax Model by Culicover & Jackendoff (2005) - cf. Jackendoff's earlier works on argument structure and semantics such as Jackendoff (1983) and Jackendoff (1990) - assume that theta roles (and thematic relations) are not suitable for reproducing the syntactic argument structure of predicates or the semantic properties discovered by them . These approaches advocate more complex semantic structures (often referred to as "lexical-conceptual structures") that are mapped onto the syntactic structure.

Most typological approaches to grammar, functionalist theories (such as functional grammar and role and reference grammar , as well as dependency grammar ) do not use theta roles, but sometimes refer to thematic relations and grammatical functions or their conceptual equivalents.

See also

• Semantic role; History of the term
• Case grammar
• Deep case

literature

• Joan Bresnan: Lexical Functional Syntax. Blackwell, 2001, ISBN 0-631-20973-5
• Andrew Carnie: Syntax: A Generative Introduction. Blackwell, 2006
• Noam Chomsky: Lectures on Government and Binding. Mouton, 1981
• Peter Culicover & Ray Jackendoff: Simpler Syntax. Oxford University Press, 2005
• David Dowty: Word meaning and Montague grammar. The semantics of verbs and times in Generative Semantics and in Montague's PTQ: Synthesis Language Library. Reidel, Dordrecht 1979
• Yehuda N. Falk: Lexical-Functional Grammar: An Introduction to Parallel Constraint-Based Syntax. CSLI, 2001, ISBN 1-57586-341-3
• Gisbert Fanselow, Sascha W. Felix: Language theory. An introduction to generative grammar. Vol. 2, The theory of rule and attachment , 3rd edition, A. Francke Verlag, Tübingen / Basel 1993, ISBN 3-7720-1732-0 . ( PDF )
• Gisbert Fanselow: Minimal Syntax. Passau, December 1990
• Charles Fillmore: The Case for Case. In: Emmon Bach & RT Harms (eds.): Universals in Linguistic Theory. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York 1968
• Charles Fillmore: Types of lexical information. In: Danny D. Steinberg & Leon A. Jakobovits (Eds.): Semantics. An interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics and psychology. Cambridge University Press, 1971
• Jeffrey Gruber: Studies in lexical relations. MIT, 1965
• Kenneth Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser: 1993. On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. In: Kenneth Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser (Eds.): The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger. MIT Press, Cambridge 1993
• Ken Hale & Samuel Jay Keyser: Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure (= Linguistic Inquiry Monograph. 39). MIT Press, Cambridge 2001
• Heidi Harley: Thematic Roles. In: Patrick Hogan (Ed.): The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Cambridge University Press, 2007
• Ray Jackendoff: Semantics and cognition. MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1983
• Ray Jackendoff: Semantic structures. MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1990
• David M. Perlmutter & Paul M. Postal: 1984. The 1-advancement exclusiveness law. In David M. Perlmutter and Carol G. Rosen (Eds.): Studies in Relational Grammar 2. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1984, pp. 81-125.
• Ivan A. Sag, Thomas Wasow & Emily M. Bender: Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction. 2nd Edition. CSLI Publications, 2003
• Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. & Randy J. LaPolla: Syntax: Structure, meaning, and function. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997

Web links

• Manfred Krifka: Dimensions of grammatical variation - a typological overview of the language. WS 2000/2001, Institute for German Language and Linguistics, Humboldt University Berlin, December 12, 2000

Individual evidence

1. ^ Mark C. Baker: Incorporation. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1988, ISBN 0-226-03541-7
2. ↑ Ken Hale , Samuel Jay Keyser : Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure. MIT Press, 2002, ISBN 0-262-58214-7
3. ↑ Patiens cf. direct object
4. ↑ recipient cf. indirect object
5. ↑ Syntax and Morphology Syntax and Morphology. University of Saarland
6. ↑ Manfred Krifka: Dimensions of grammatical variation: An introduction to the language typology. Humboldt University Berlin
7. ↑ Katarina Klein: Semantics in the HPSG. SS 2006, p. 3–4  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.