Thematic Hierarchy Research Articles

De-Phrase Extractability and Individual/Property Denotation

This paper argues against a hypothesis commonly assumed in Romance linguistics, namely, that the thematic hierarchy Possessor ≺ Agent ≺ Theme regulates de-phrase extraction out of the (French) noun phrase. I propose that de-phrase asymmetries (in the domain of extraction and in other domains) correlate with an independently motivated semantic partition -- one between individual-denoting phrases (IDPs) that pick out an entity in discourse, and property-denoting phrases (PDPs) that determine a type of entity. I put forward the Nominal Denotation Hypothesis (NDH): at most one de-phrase of each type can be associated with a given noun (N) head. I subsequently demonstrate (a) that a number of problematic exceptions to the thematic hierarchy can be directly accounted for under NDH, (b) that further facets of de-phrase behaviour bearing on matters of general distribution, aspect, linear order, definiteness/specificity, and the potential/lack of potential for exhibiting scopal ambiguity (which were not accounted for in previous works relying on the thematic hierarchy) also originate in NDH, and (c) that NDH is nonetheless compatible with certain fundamental aspects of previous approaches (in both derivational and lexicalist frameworks).

Deixis and thematic hierarchies in Russian narrative discourse

In reference with demonstrative forms, the core function of deixis can be extended in a variety of ways to influence the addressee's interpretation of the discourse. For example, it is well known that in narrative discourse deictic forms are often used to present a perspective that is internal to the narrative (Fillmore, 1976). Russian data suggest that a higher level of influence can also exist: a narrator's choice of a deictic means of reference can contribute to a sense of thematic hierarchization within the local discourse. The core locational meaning of the Russian distal demonstrative tot is metaphorized in various ways, and combines with grammatical subordination and other features of the grammar to create a sense of thematic subordination.

A Lexical Semantic Explanation for ‘Quirky’ Case Marking in Hindi

The case canonically assigned to subjects across languages is nominative or ergative case. In a number of languages including Tamil, Russian, Finnish, Icelandic, Malayalam and Hindi, subjects can receive dative case marking. This phenomenon, labelled ‘quirky’ or ‘lexical’ case‐marking, is generally accounted for in terms of the association of dative case with an argument bearing a particular thematic role in the lexical entries of individual verbs (Zaenen, Maling & Thrainsson, 1985). Such an account does not account for all the data, neither does it explain why certain thematic roles should get dative case marking. In this paper, I show that the case‐marking patterns in Hindi can be accounted for in a principled manner in terms of the interaction of the aspectual characteristics of the construction, its adicity, and the relative prominence of the arguments of the verb on the Thematic Hierarchy. My account of this phenomenon is formulated within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (Foley & Van Valin 1984; Van Valin 1991, 1993).

The L2 acquisition of dative experiencer subjects

This longitudinal experimental study is concerned with the L2 acquisition of argument structure and its relationship with Case Theory. French ( n = 17) and English ( n = 19) intermediate learners of Spanish as a Second Language were tested three times over a period of eight months on their knowledge of dative experiencers. Eighteen Spanish native speakers acted as a control group. Dative experiencers in Spanish are common with a subset of psych verbs and unaccusative predicates. These experiencers look like indirect objects on the surface, and indeed can appear in the position of indirect objects. Most of the time, however, they appear in canonical subject position and behave like subjects for some modules of the grammar, such as Control PRO in adjunct clauses. It was hypothesized that if a thematic hierarchy is operative in SLA,both English and French learners would have no difficulty interpreting experiencers as subjects, but that English learners would experience greater difficulty with dative case because there is no dative case in English.An Interpretation Task and a Preference Task were designed to test these hypotheses. Results indicate that,whereas both groups of subjects have access to the thematic hierarchy (a UG component),L1 influence plays an important role with case assignment and checking.

The syntax of idioms

This paper proposes that idioms are subject to the Continuity Constraint, a grammatical principle that defines their general architecture in terms of a chain of head-to-head relations. The Continuity Constraint accurately describes the organization of extant idioms, including non-constituent idioms, while at the same time correctly predicting that certain types of patterns are impossible. In addition, it sheds new light on the relevance of argument structure to idiom creation, uncovering asymmetries in the composition of idioms that appear to involve thematic hierarchy effects.

On the configurational nature of possession

Abstract The paper presents an interface approach to the nature of verbal, nominal, and prepositional possession (HAVE, 's, and ‘of’, respectvely), It combines insights from theta-theory (e.g. thematic hierarchies) with a configurational approach to possession, the latter being particularly inspired by the quantificational properties of possessive constructions and the idea that a possessive DP instantiates a kind of parasitic gap configuration — the presence of an internal argument of the possessed noun (i.e. the structural presence within the possessed noun's projection of an internal argument) can be forced by structural reasons, to license quantificational subextraction from the NP-external overt possessor.

Postnominal adjectives in Spanish DPs

Starting from the traditional distinction between R(elational) and Q(ualifying) adjectives, we divide the former into two major subclasses: Th(ematic) and C(lassificatory) adjectives. This distinction has effects on semantic interpretation and word order. Th-adjectives obey the thematic hierarchy and C-adjectives follow patterns of subclassification of objects in different domains. R-adjectives are maximal projections mapped into specifier positions. Spanish, contrary to English, has overt raising for gender and number checking on the noun and the adjectives. R-adjectives are argued to form syntactic clusters by a series of adjunctions that satisfy antisymmetric c-command requirements and minimality constraints on movement.

Trace Deletion, Θ-Roles, and Cognitive Strategies

This paper reports a rather striking distinction found in the performance of agrammatic patients: Their comprehension deficit distinguishes not only different syntactic constructions, but also verbs with different thematic structure. Thus, the coupling of a variety of sentence types with different verb types yields surprising performance patterns, demonstrating once again that the deficit these patients suffer from is highly selective from a grammatical viewpoint. This pattern of selectivity has important implications for linguistic theory, for it describes an error pattern that can be accounted for only by a theory that assumes a (normal) lexicon that encodes thematic labels and refers to a thematic hierarchy. In addition, the results argue for the necessity of a cognitive strategy (first NP = Agent) as part of the structural account of agrammatic comprehension (the Trace-Deletion Hypothesis). It is shown that, contrary to some recent claims, an account lacking such a strategy cannot derive agrammatic performance patterns properly. New data are presented, from an experiment that used an anagram task to test agrammatic comprehension of active and passive sentences containing verbs of three different thematic types. Verbs varied in that their external argument was Agent, Instrument, or Experiencer. The finding was that on all active sentences, performance was above chance, whereas on the passives, performance split: on verbs with Agent or Instrument external arguments, performance was at chance, corroborating previous findings. On Experiencer verbs, though, performance was below chance. These data argue decisively for the TDH as originally presented, namely, for an account that assumes trace deletion, coupled with a strategy. The implications of these results to the theory of brain/language relations are discussed, in the context of the theory of lexical representation.

The thematic hierarchy and causativity

Chinese resultative compounds provide evidence that the thematic hierarchy is not the only factor determining the link between theta roles and syntactic arguments. Rather, it interacts with the causative hierarchy and when in conflict, can be overridden by the latter. This “asymmetrical” interaction between the two factors is shown to be responsible for the complex and, in some cases, totally unexpected patterns of ambiguity that resultative compounds demonstrate in various syntactic contexts. To the extent that the presence/absence of the causative hierarchy can be accurately predicted and its interaction with the thematic hierarchy explicitly specified, this paper lends support to the multi-dimensional nature of human language.

Thematic roles, focus and the representation of events

Abstract Two experiments investigated the focusing properties of thematic roles, while a third experiment investigated the view that thematic role preferences reflect a focusing on the consequences of the represented event. Sentence continuation tasks were used in which subjects wrote continuations to sentence fragments containing two antecedents, each occupying a different thematic role. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed a preference for referring to a particular thematic role regardless of the presence or absence of a pronoun at the start of the continuation and regardless of whether the continuation was part of a different sentence from the one containing the antecedents (Experiment 1) or part of the same sentence (Experiment 2). These preferences were interpreted as being due to a focus on the consequences of the represented event in a mental model of the sentence. Experiment 3 tested this interpretation by using sentence fragments that ended in so (a connective that reinforces the focus on consequences) or because (a connective that conflicts with the focus on consequences). The results confirmed the interpretation: the observed preferences were maintained with so but modified by because The results are discussed in terms of the structure of represented events, top-down and bottom-up processes, and thematic hierarchies. The first mention effect in pronoun comprehension is also discussed.

La mise en ordre des relations actancielles : les conditions d'accès des rôles actanciels aux fonctions de sujet et d'objet

J. Francois & J. Broschart. La mise en ordre des relations actancielles : les conditions d'acces des roles actanciels aux fonctions de sujet et d'objet The aim of this contribution is to contrast different conceptions of the linking between semantic roles (agent, patient, experiencer, locative, benefactive, etc.) and syntactic functions (subject, direct and indirect object), especially investigating the form of an access hierarchy. We begin with the notion of (un)marked selection of subject and object in Fillmore's semantic case theory. Then we trace the evolution of the principle of « thematic hierarchy » in JackendofPs model of conceptual semantics. The third section is devoted to the discussion of universality and accessibility of the syntactic functions « subject » and « object » from a functionalist point of view. The fourth section is concerned with the distinction between case marking systems and the observed shifts from one system to another. Finally we demonstrate that the « participation » model of the UNITYP group in Cologne is able to provide a multi-factorial description of the grammaticalisation of case relations.

Productivity and constraints in the acquisition of the passive

The acquisition of the passive in English poses a learnability problem. Most transitive verbs have passive forms (e.g., kick/was kicked by), tempting the child to form a productive rule of passivization deriving passive participles from active forms. However, some verbs cannot be passivized (e.g. cost/was cost by). Given that children do not receive negative evidence telling them which strings are ungrammatical, what prevents them from overgeneralizing a productive passive rule to the exceptional verbs (or if they do incorrectly passivize such verbs, how do they recover)? One possible solution is that children are conservative: they only generate passives for those verbs that they have heard in passive sentences in the input. We show that this proposal is incorrect: in children's spontaneous speech, they utter passive participles that they could not have heard in parental input, and in four experiments in which 3–8-year-olds were taught novel verbs in active sentences, they freely uttered passivized versions of them when describing new events. An alternative solution is that children at some point come to possess a semantic constraint distinguishing passivizable from nonpassivizable verbs. In two of the experiments, we show that children do not have an absolute constraint forbidding them to passivize nonactional verbs of perception or spatial relationships, although they passivize them somewhat more reluctantly than they do actional verbs. In two other experiments, we show that children's tendency to passivize depends on the mapping between thematic roles and grammatical functions specified by the verb: they selectively resist passivizing made-up verbs whose subjects are patients and whose objects are agents; and they are more likely to passivize spatial relation verbs with location subjects than with theme subjects. These trends are consistent with Jackendoff's “Thematic Hierarchy Condition” on the adult passive. However, we argue that the constraint on passive that adults obey, and that children approach, is somewhat different: passivizable verbs must have object arguments that are patients, either literally for action verbs, or in an extended abstract sense that individual languages can define for particular classes of nonactional verbs.

Treatment of a spider phobia by in vivo and imaginal desensitization

The use of in vivo and imaginal desensitization procedures in the treatment of a spider phobia is described. A diversity of in vivo programs, following a thematic hierarchy paradigm, are discussed in detail to encourage more frequent attention to and utilization of easily arranged, controlled exposures.