Argument structure

This chapter applies the constructional theory to variation in systems for expressing argument structure. A central point is that there are multiple devices of comparable complexity that encode the thematic roles; hence it is not necessary to assume that all languages share a universal syntactic structure at some abstract level of representation.

EXPRESS: Online representations of non-canonical sentences are more than good-enough

Proponents of good-enough processing suggest that readers often (mis)interpret certain sentences using fast-and-frugal heuristics, such that for non-canonical sentences (e.g. The dog was bitten by the man) people confuse the thematic roles of the nouns. We tested this theory by examining the effect of sentence canonicality on the reading of a follow-up sentence. In a self-paced reading study 60 young and 60 older adults read an implausible sentence in either canonical (e.g. It was the peasant that executed the king) or non-canonical form (e.g. It was the king that was executed by the peasant), followed by a sentence that was implausible given a good-enough misinterpretation of the first sentence (e.g. Afterwards, the peasant rode back to the countryside), or a sentence that was implausible given a correct interpretation of the first sentence (e.g. Afterwards, the king rode back to his castle). We hypothesised that if non-canonical sentences are systematically misinterpreted then sentence canonicality would differentially affect the reading of the two different follow-up types. Our data suggested that participants derived the same interpretations for canonical and non-canonical sentences, with no modulating effect of age group. Our findings suggest that readers do not derive an incorrect interpretation of non-canonical sentences during initial parsing, consistent with theories of misinterpretation effects that instead attribute these effects to post-interpretative processes.

Thematic reanalysis in the left posterior parietal sulcus: A TMS study

Understanding who does what to whom is at the core of sentence comprehension. The actors that contribute to the verb meaning are labeled thematic roles. We used Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to verify the possible impact of verb semantics on the thematic role encoding process that has been shown to involve the posterior portion of the left posterior parietal sulcus (PPS; Finocchiaro et al., 2015). Sixteen participants underwent TMS and SHAM sessions while performing an ℌagent-decisionℍ task, in which they had to decide by key press which of the two arguments was the agent of visually presented sentences or pseudo-sentences. (Pseudo)sentences were all reversible and were presented in the active or passive diathesis. Double pulse TMS was delivered to the posterior part of the IPS in an event-related fashion, at two different time windows: 200-400 msec (T1) or 600-800 msec (T2) time-locked to the presentation of the (pseudo)sentence. Results showed that TMS increased accuracy on passive sentences and pseudo-sentences as compared to active sentences and to the baseline, SHAM condition. Indeed, the presence of a verb with a full semantic representation was not a necessary precondition for the TMS-induced facilitation of passive (pseudo)sentences. Stimulation timing had no effect on accuracy for sentences vs. pseudo-sentences. These observations support the idea that the posterior parietal site is recruited when the correct interpretation of a sentence requires reanalysis of temporarily encoded thematic roles (as in reversible passive sentences) even when the verb is not an entry in the lexicon and hence does not have a semantic representation. Results are consistent with previous evidence and deserve further investigation in larger experimental samples. Increasing the number and variety of stimulus sentences, and administering TMS to additional control sites will be key to further articulate the conclusions allowed by these initial findings.

Implicit causality biases and thematic roles in American Sign Language

Implicit causality (IC) biases, the tendency of certain verbs to elicit re-mention of either the first-mentioned noun phrase (NP1) or the second-mentioned noun phrase (NP2) from the previous clause, are important in psycholinguistic research. Understanding IC verbs and the source of their biases in signed as well as spoken languages helps elucidate whether these phenomena are language general or specific to the spoken modality. As the first of its kind, this study investigates IC biases in American Sign Language (ASL) and provides IC bias norms for over 200 verbs, facilitating future psycholinguistic studies of ASL and comparisons of spoken versus signed languages. We investigated whether native ASL signers continued sentences with IC verbs (e.g., ASL equivalents of ‘Lisa annoys Maya because…’) by mentioning NP1 (i.e., Lisa) or NP2 (i.e., Maya). We found a tendency towards more NP2-biased verbs. Previous work has found that a verb’s thematic roles predict bias direction: stimulus-experiencer verbs (e.g., ‘annoy’), where the first argument is the stimulus (causing annoyance) and the second argument is the experiencer (experiencing annoyance), elicit more NP1 continuations. Verbs with experiencer-stimulus thematic roles (e.g., ‘love’) elicit more NP2 continuations. We probed whether the trend towards more NP2-biased verbs was related to an existing claim that stimulus-experiencer verbs do not exist in sign languages. We found that stimulus-experiencer structure, while permitted, is infrequent, impacting the IC bias distribution in ASL. Nevertheless, thematic roles predict IC bias in ASL, suggesting that the thematic role-IC bias relationship is stable across languages as well as modalities.

GAPS IN THE ASPECTUAL PARADIGMS OF EXPERIENCER VERBS IN SERBIAN

The goal of this paper is to account for the gaps in the aspectual paradigms of experiencer verbs (verbs of emotion) in Serbian, i.e. to explain why certain verbs lack certain aspectual versions (imperfective, perfective or secondary imperfective). The proposed analysis ties the availability of aspectual forms to the thematic roles of participants in the situation denoted by the verb. Relying on Ramchand’s (2008) decompositional view of VP, it is assumed that there are two possible perfectivization options both of which depend on the presence of particular layers in VP structure and consequently particular thematic roles associated with those layers. The first perfectivization option is dependent upon the presence of the initiator argument (and InitP) while the second option is conditioned by the presence of the proper (affected) theme (or ResP). The lack of these two participants results in the systematic lack of perfective (the perfective gap). Secondary imperfective gaps are accounted for by the lack of true endpoint (the entailed endpoint of the resulting state, not just the situation denoted by the verb) while imperfective gaps are explained on a case-by-case basis appealing to the lack of lexicalization of certain verbal meanings or the fact that the verbal form is derived from a non-verbal stem.

On the Impact of Case and Prosody on Thematic Role Disambiguation: An Eye-Tracking Study on Hungarian

Thematic-role assignment is influenced by several classes of cues during sentence comprehension, ranging from morphological exponents of syntactic relation such as case and agreement to probabilistic cues such as prosody. The effect of these cues cross-linguistically varies, presumably reflecting their language-specific robustness in signaling thematic roles. However, language-specific frequencies are not mapped onto the cue strength in a one-to-one fashion. The present article reports two eye-tracking studies on Hungarian examining the interaction of case and prosody during the processing of case-unambiguous (Experiment 1) and case-ambiguous (Experiment 2) clauses. Eye fixations reveal that case is a strong cue for thematic role assignment, but stress only enhances the effect of case in case-unambiguous clauses. This result differs from findings reported for Italian and German in which case initial stress reduces the expectation for subject-first clauses. Furthermore, the sentence comprehension facts are not explained by corpus frequencies in Hungarian. After considering an array of hypotheses about the roots of cross-linguistic variation, we conclude that the crucial difference lies in the high reliability/availability of case cues in Hungarian in contrast to the further languages examined within this experimental paradigm.

Representasi Argumen Gerak Ruang Bahasa Melayu Berdasarkan Teori Struktur Konseptual

Motion is understood as a change from one location to another. Therefore, this study focuses on spatial motion consisting of directional, extensional, state and causative motion. This study utilizes data from the Pangkalan Data Korpus Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka database in Malaysia for its study samples. The analysis employs Jackendoff ’s (1997 & 2011) Theory of Conceptual Structure for its framework. The mapping of these arguments comprises three main stages, namely mapping to conceptual structure representation, mapping to conceptual tree diagrams and mapping to thematic roles. The results show that spatial motion is present in the [Event] and [States] functions that carry the basic formula [[[MOTION [x [Event] [Object] [Path] [Place]]]. The findings show that the lexical items balik, berlari, tinggal, terletak, berada, bunuh, paksa, benar and tolong have their own representation of arguments involving constituents such as [Event], [States], [Object] [Path] [Place] [Event] REASON], [NO Causative], [TRUE Causative] and [HELP Causative]. For the mapping stage in the thematic role, the item involved is the role of Actor, Theme, Goal, Source, Agent and Beneficiary (-). Accordingly, this study shows an adequate systematic representation of the conceptual structure, particularly in the spatial motion domain in the Malay language.

Representasi Argumen Gerak Ruang Bahasa Melayu Berdasarkan Teori Struktur Konseptual

Motion is understood as a change from one location to another. Therefore, this study focuses on spatial motion consisting of directional, extensional, state and causative motion. This study utilizes data from the Pangkalan Data Korpus Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka database in Malaysia for its study samples. The analysis employs Jackendoff’s (1997 & 2011) Theory of Conceptual Structure for its framework. The mapping of these arguments comprises three main stages, namely mapping to conceptual structure representation, mapping to conceptual tree diagrams and mapping to thematic roles. The results show that spatial motion is present in the [Event] and [States] functions that carry the basic formula [[[MOTION [x [Event] [Object] [Path] [Place]]]. The findings show that the lexical items balik, berlari, tinggal, terletak, berada, bunuh, paksa, benar and tolong have their own representation of arguments involving constituents such as [Event], [States], [Object] [Path] [Place] [Event] REASON], [NO Causative], [TRUE Causative] and [HELP Causative]. For the mapping stage in the thematic role, the item involved is the role of Actor, Theme, Goal, Source, Agent and Beneficiary (-). Accordingly, this study shows an adequate systematic representation of the conceptual structure, particularly in the spatial motion domain in the Malay language.

Where are thematic roles?

In ‘Where are thematic roles? Building the micro-syntax of implicit arguments in nominalizations’, Roeper attempts an approach to capture implicit arguments in a fashion that is closely linked to the projection of verbs. Roeper argues for clitic-like projections that accompany the verb, particularly evident in nominalizations: These separate the lexical Argument-theta projections of the verb from the conditions for projecting Maximal Projections which enter into syntactic operations, while the larger pattern of subject, object, and control behavior remains consistent across the syntax and the lexicon. Roeper argues that bare nominalizations (e.g. a look, a glance, a comment) all carry argument structure capable of motivating syntactic binding. Moreover, argument projections into the Possessive of nominalizations show predictable sensitivity to passive morphemes (-ed, -able) buried inside nominalizations. They allow only an object projection in nominalized Possessives precisely as they do in verbal structures. The theory of Theta-role projection must allow projection of an AGENT to Subject in little v, Subject in TP, and Subject in Possessives, and if acquisition is efficient, it should all follow automatically from UG. Roeper then argues that impersonal passives that appear in a subset of languages call for both special syntax and a special vision of possible integration into discourse structure. <206>