Abstract
The syntactic structure of a sentence is usually a strong predictor of its meaning: Each argument noun phrase (i.e., Subject and Object) should map onto exactly one thematic role (i.e., Agent and Patient, respectively). Some constructions, however, are exceptions to this pattern. This paper investigates how the syntactic structure of an utterance contributes to its construal, using ditransitive English light verb constructions, such as “Nils gave a hug to his brother,” as an example of such mismatches: Hugging is a two-role event, but the ditransitive syntactic structure suggests a three-role event. Data from an eye-tracking experiment and behavioral categorization data reveal that listeners learn to categorize sentences according to the number of thematic roles they convey, independent of their syntax. Light verb constructions, however, seem to form a category of their own, in which the syntactic structure leads listeners down an initial incorrect assignment of thematic roles, from which they only partly recover. These results suggest an automatic influence of syntactic argument structure on semantic interpretation and event construal, even in highly frequent constructions.
Highlights
Thematic roles have been a foundational notion in linguistics for 50 years, ever since Gruber’s (1965) seminal study on lexical relations
This study validated Wittenberg and Snedeker’s (2014) main finding, that people do not categorize events described by light verb constructions such as giving a kiss as either two role or three role events
The task was implicit, participants were unaware of the regularity that governed the emergence of the ball, and the use of orthogonal strategies was unlikely. Both our mouse click data and eye-tracking data show that light verb constructions exhibited a pattern different from both two- and three-role sentences: they seemed to be treated as being intermediate between both
Summary
Thematic roles have been a foundational notion in linguistics for 50 years, ever since Gruber’s (1965) seminal study on lexical relations. In psycholinguistics and language acquisition, the psychological reality of thematic roles has seen renewed interest in recent years, in particular through studies of unusual mappings between syntax and semantics, and how their acquisition and processing might shed light on the broader architecture of the language faculty (Chang et al, 2003; Bornkessel et al, 2006; Noble et al, 2011; Primus, 2012; Hartshorne et al, 2015; Rissman et al, 2015; and many others). B. Nils gave a hug to his brother. C. Nils gave a book to his brother
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