10.1 Transitive of Clauses
Clauses that do not contain any objects are
called INTRANSITIVE.
o The man
went.
o A woman
arrived.
o The big
dog sat.
o The one
little cat arose.
Clauses which contain a direct object are
called TRANSITIVE
o
The man ate the food
o
The man squared a long log.
o
A woman drew out water.
o
The dog drank water.
There is a special type of transitive clause
which contains an INDIRECT OBJECT as well as a DIRECT OBJECT. These are
generally called DISTRANSITIVE or BITRANSITIVE.
o
The man gave a small coin to a woman.
o
The man sent a message to a woman.
o
A child chatted with a woman.
Indirect objects typically represent such
ideas as the RECIPIENT of something (with verbs like give and throw) or the
ADDRESSEE (with verbs like mention, speak, and shout)
Indirect objects in English are also from
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES (PPs) consisting of the PREPOSITION to followed by NP.
o
He offered a mustache comb to his girlfriend.
o
She gave the ring back to her former
boyfriend.
o
Lucy threw the ball to Charlie Brown.
o
Speak properly to your mother.
English shows the indirect object as
prepositional phrase following the direct object.
S à NP[Su] VP
VP à V (NP[DO]) (PP[IO])
PP à P NP
10.2 Verbal Valence
The following sentences generally sound wrong to native speakers of English though
they are grammatical.
o
*Mary rested the idea.
o
*The pilot put the airplane.
o
*Curious green ideas sleep furiously.
o
*The idea walked into the room.
What’s wrong with them? In general, the
problem is that each verb requires certain phrases to be present or absent in
its context. If the context is inappropriate for the verb, putting the verb in
that context will sound wrong. This characteristic of verbs to be `choosy`
about their context is called VALENCE.
We consider two sides of verbal valence here.
One has to do with syntactic properties of verbs and can be called
SUBCATEGORIZATION. The other concerns the semantic properties of verbs and is
usually called SELECTIONAL RESTRICTIONS.
10.3 Syntactic valence:
Subcategorization
Verbs that occur only in intransitive clauses
are called INTRANSITIVE VERBS.
Verbs that occur only in transitive clauses
are called TRANSITIVE VERBS.
Verbs that occur only in ditransitive clauses
are called DITRANSITIVE VERBS.
Different verbs require different
combinations of direct and indirect objects. The category of verbs is thus
subdivided into several smaller subcategories: intransitive verbs, transitive
verbs, etc.
10.4 Semantic valence:
Selectional restrictions
Syntactic subcategorization is distinguished
from another type of verbal valence which involves semantics. Consider the
following sentences:
o
The lightning considered mopping in the
floor.
o
The paramecium threaded its way through the
maze.
o
The lamppost was lecturing temperance.
o
An idea flew into the room.
The problem with the sentences above is that
they describe situations which do not occur in the ordinary world.
All of them have wrongness around them. Yet, this
wrongness does not result from syntactic
subcategorization, since there are parallel sentences. With the same
combinations of direct and indirect objects, that are perfectly acceptable.
o The
janitor considered mopping the floor.
o The
paramecium threaded its way through the maze.
o The
boss was lecturing Arthur.
o An idea
flew into my mind.
However, when we are doing syntactic
analysis, we do sometimes need to keep track of the semantic structure of a
verb in a rudimentary way. One common way to do this is through SEMANTIC ROLES,
which are a kind of shorthand summary of common selectional restrictions. Here
are some of the semantic roles that are usually found with subjects, direct
objects, and indirect objects:
AGENT a conscious, volitional
causer of an event
EXPERIENCER a thinking being that experiences a
mental event.
PATIENT an entity that undergoes a change of
state in an event
THEME an entity towards which an
action is directed, without being a patient.
RECIPIENT a person who acquires control over a Theme as
a result of an event.
ADDRESSEE the target of some communication
Look at the semantic roles associated with
the noun phrases in the following examples:
o
A child chatted with a woman (chatted with: lit., ‘gave words
with’)
Agent Addressee (Theme)
o
The old
hunter
spotted a three-point buck.
Experiencer Theme
o
My
parents give too many presents to our kids.
Agent Theme Recipient
10.5 Semantic roles and
grammatical relations
We have assumed Agents and Experiencers
to be subject, Patients and Themes to be direct objects, and Recipients and Addressees to be indirect objects. There are plenty of exceptions.
For example, in receive, the subject
could be considered a Recipient
rather than an Agent. In break, there are two possible
associations of semantic roles. Depending on its use as a transitive or intransitive
verb. As a transitive verb (‘He broke’), the subject is a Patient and there is no Agent.
So, cannot completely predict semantic roles on the basis of grammatical
relations, or vice versa. We cannot write general rules of the form ‘all
subjects are Agents’ or ‘all Patients
are direct objects’.
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