PREDICATES, ARGUMENTS and THEMATIC ROLES

Predicates and Arguments

Up to now, we have described each sentence of English in two separate ways: functionally and formally. Consider (1) below:

(1) The crocodile devoured a doughnut.

This sentence consists of a Subject (the crocodile), a Predicator (devoured ) and a Direct Object (a doughnut). Both the Subject and Direct Object are realised by Noun Phrases, whereas the Predicator is realised by a verb.

Let us now consider (1) from a different angle. Notice that the verb devour cannot form a sentence on its own: it requires the presence of other elements to form a meaningful proposition. As will be clear from (2) and (3) below, devour requires that it be specified who was engaged in the act of devouring something, and what it was that was being devoured.

(2) *Devoured a doughnut.

(3) *The crocodile devoured.

In (2) there is no Subject, whereas (3) lacks a Direct Object. Both situations lead to ungrammaticality. We will refer to elements that require the specification of the participants in the proposition expressed as predicates (e.g. devour), and we will refer to the participants themselves as arguments (the crocodile, a doughnut).

(4) Henry smiled.

(5) The police investigated the allegation.

(6) Sara gave [Pete] [a parcel ].

(7) Melany bet [Brian] [a pound] [that he would lose the game of squash].

Sentence (4) is a predicate that takes only one argument. We will call such predicates one-place predicates (or monadic predicates). (5) is like (1) above:  the predicate investigate requires the presence of two arguments. It is a two place predicate (or dyadic predicate). In (6) the verb send takes three arguments, and is called a three-place predicate (or triadic predicate). Sentences like (7) are very exceptional in English; a verb like bet can be said to take four arguments: three Noun Phrase arguments (Melany, Brian, a pound ), and one clausal argument (that he would lose the game of squash).

In each case of the cases above we refer to the arguments inside VP (i.e. following the verb) as internal arguments and to the Subject argument as the external argument. It is important to see that the semantic notions oneplace predicate, two-place predicate and three-place predicate correspond to the syntactic notions intransitive verb, transitive verb and ditransitive verb.

 Ivan gave me a book for Christmas.

 Ivan is so boring: he always gives books!

The implicit Indirect Object can be interpreted here as ‘his friends’ or‘people’.

It is important to realise that not only verbs can be predicates. Nouns, adjectives and prepositions can too, as (19)–(21) make clear:

(19) Paul’s study of art history.

(20) Freddy is fond of his sister.

(21) The bird is inside the house.

In (19) the noun study requires the specification of a Subject expression, i.e. it requires the specification of a ‘studier’, in this case Paul. It also requires the specification of an internal argument, i.e. what is being studied, namely art history. Compare (19) to the sentence Paul studies art history. In (20) and (21) the Subject expressions are Freddy and the bird, respectively, while of his sister and the house correspond to the internal arguments we find in VPs. The semantic content of the verb be in (20) and (21) is empty; the verb only serves as a carrier of the present tense inflection.

Thematic Roles

Arguments are participants in what one linguist has called ‘the little drama’that a proposition expresses. To be a participant in a drama you must be playing a role. The following thematic roles are widely accepted:

Agent : The ‘doer’, or instigator of the action denoted by the predicate.

Patient : The ‘undergoer’ of the action or event denoted by the predicate.

Theme : The entity that is moved by the action or event denoted by the predicate.

Experiencer : The living entity that experiences the action or event denoted by the predicate.

Goal : The location or entity in the direction of which something moves.

Benefactive : The entity that benefits from the action or event denoted by the predicate.

Source : The location or entity from which something moves.

Instrument : The medium by which the action or event denoted by the predicate is carried out.

Locative : The specification of the place where the action or event denoted by the predicate is situated.

Consider the sentences below and determine which thematic roles the

bracketed phrases can be said to carry.

(i) [His mother] sent [David] [a letter].

(ii) [David] smelled [the freshly baked bread].

(iii) [We] put [the cheese] [in the fridge].

(iv) [Frank] threw [himself] [onto the sofa].

(v) [Greg] comes [from Wales].

In (i) the Subject Noun Phrase carries the role of Agent, as do the Subjects in (iii) and (iv). The role of David in (ii) is that of Experiencer. Sentence (v) illustrates that it is by no means always easy to determine the thematic role of a particular phrase: what _-role do we assign to the NP Greg? None of the roles on our list is quite appropriate.We can adopt two possible solutions to this problem. Either we say that Greg carries one of the _-roles on our list, though marginally so, say Theme, or we invent a new role altogether, say Topic. We have yet to discuss the roles of the non-Subject phrases in the exercise. In (i) David is the Goal of the act of sending. The NPs the letter in (i), the cheese in (iii) and himself in (iv) are Themes. They could also be said to be Patients, In the fridge and on the sofa are Goals (or perhaps Locative in the case of in the fridge), while from Wales in (v) clearly carries the role of Source. There only remains one case, and that is the NP the freshly baked bread in (ii) is  a Patient.