Thematic Roles

Alternative conceptions

Thematic roles
Thematic relations (Jackendoff)
Theta roles (Government Binding syntax and after)

Semantic roles
Semantic cases (Fillmore)

Dowty, David. 1991. Thematic Proto Roles and Argument Selection. Language 67:3.

Some common groups of Roles types

Agent, Patient
Theme, Location
Theme, Source, Path, Goal
Experiencer, Content

Instrument, Beneficiary, Comitative

Uses for Roles

    1. Contrasting with alteration in grammatical function. (What remains constant between active and passive. Truth-conditional constancy.
    2. Indexing arguments.
      Principles of complement licensing and argument uniqueness.
      Individual thematic roles vs. thematic role types
    3. Event topology generalizations
    4. Alignment/ Argument selection (esp. Subject and Direct Object)

Distinguishing Roles and Grammatical Functions

    1. Maria sent the package to Jody.
      SUBJ        DOBJ           To-OBJ
      Source      Theme          Goal
    2. The package was sent to Jody by Maria.
      SUBJ                            To-OBJ By-OBJ
      Theme                           Goal      Source
    3. Maria sent Jody the package.
      SUBJ         IndOBJ   DOBJ
      Source       Goal        Theme
    4. Jody was sent the package by Maria.
      SUBJ               DOBJ           By-OBJ
      Goal                 Theme          Source

Argument Indexing

Martin sold his bike to Joan for $15.
Seller             Goods         Buyer     Value

Sell: Seller : Subject, Goods:Direct Object, Buyer: To-Obj, Price: For-Obj

Individual Thematic role names are sufficient to distinguish among a predicates arguments and to checking (some kinds of) well-formedness of the linking of roles to grammatical functions:

Licensing: Every verb complement must be assigned a thematic role.

Uniqueness: Each role may be assigned to at most one complement. (Vs. exactly one)

Event Topology

Thematic Role types recognize similarities across families of verb meanings. Consider the verbs which can go into the following frame:

John ---------- the package to Cleo.

Gave, sent, mailed, faxed, fed-exed, loaned, sold, pitched, handed, threw, tossed, propelled, overhanded, underhanded, swapped, willed, bequeathed, donated, …

Role Types come in groups, reflect event structure, and can be defined (prototypically) as clusters of entailments.

Theme: the participant which changes location during an event.

Source: the start point of the theme's change in location.

Goal: The end point of the theme.

Path: the course traveled by the theme between source and goal.

Levels of Analysis

Movement / Static Location:

Theme + Location vs. Theme + Source - Path - Goal

Control /Causation and Affectedness

Agent: the participant most in control of event, responsible for effects.

Patient: the participant which undergoes a change of state (through action of the agent.

Cause, causer, causee

Unaccusative / Causative Alternation

    1. The door is open.
    2. The door opened.
    3. Judy opened the door.
    4. The window is broken.
    5. The window broke.
    6. Jason broke the window.

What (type of) role?

Jim ran out of the room.
What role does Jim bear? Runner? Theme? Agent? Patient?

Joyce ran Jim out of the room.
What role does Jim bear? What role does Jim play?

Alignment / Argument Selection Hierarchy

Agent > Source, Goal > Instrument > Theme
    1. John opened the door with a key.
    2. The key opened the door
    3. The door was opened by John with a key.
    4. *The key opened the door by John.

Dowty's Proto Roles

Proto-Agent

Proto-Patient