Linguistics 522

The Lexicon

Lecture 7

The Lexicon, The Theta-Criterion, and the Extended Projection Principle

Subcategorization revisited

Information in a lex entry:

devour

  1. John devoured the steak.
  2. * John devoured.
  3. * John devoured at/of/to the steak

devour:

    [+V,-N]
    [NP]

Phonological Info:

    Category (Radford uses features)
    Subcategorization frame

    A Permissible tree for devour

Lexical Examples

rely

  1. John relies on Mary.
  2. * John relies.
  3. * John relies Mary.
  4. * John relies to/at/for Mary

rely:

    [+V,-N]
    [PP]
    where PP must be headed by on
Info about what preposition specifically is used is not included.

donate

  1. John donated money to the orphanage.
  2. * John donated to the orphanage.
  3. John donated no money to any one.

donate:

    [+V,-N]
    [NP,PP]
    (where PP must be headed by on)

expect

  1. John expects Mary to leave.
  2. John expects Mary. (different meaning)
  3. John expects an earthquake. (same meaning as 2?)
  4. John expects there to be an earthquake. (evidence for exceptional S)
  5. John expects advantage to be taken of the students.(evidence for exc. S)
  6. Paraphrse relation (evidence for exc S)
      John expects the doctor to examine Mary.
      John expects Mary to be examined by the doctor.

expect1

    [+V,-N]
    [NP]

expect2

    [+V,-N]
    [S]
    A Permissible tree for expect1
    A Permissible tree for expect2

afraid

  1. John is afraid of Mary.
  2. * John is afraid to leave.
  3. * There is afraid to be an earthquake.
  4. * Advantage is afraid to be taken of Mary.

afraid1:

    [+V,+N]
    [PP]
    where PP must be headed by of

afraid1:

    [+V,+N]
    [S']
    where the Comp of S' must be [-FIN,-WH]

Thematic Relations

Agent:

  1. John smashed the banana.
  2. John up the hill.
  3. John hit the ball over the fence,

Theme:

  1. John smashed the banana.
  2. The banana broke

Locative: In the room

Source: from Mary, from the room

Goal: To Mary, To the room.

Projection and Theta-Marking

What are Thematic Relations?

Answer: The relations the participants of the action (or more generally) situation described by the predicate bear the to the situation, relations such as being an active agent, being a cause, being the source from which motion or energy begins.

Objection: But there are many such relations and each participant bears many of them. How do we know which ones are important?

Why do we introduce Theta-roles?

Answer: It turns out thast the notion of a thematic relation, while useful, is raises many issues we do not need to deal with as syntacticians. What we really care about is not what the exact thematic relations are or how many of them there are, but just that fact that there is a unique cluster of relations for each argument.

We call that cluster of relations that makes each participant different from the others the participants theta-role.

Thus the claim is not that there is a unique relation chosen from some special set that each participant bears but that there is a set of relations uniquely identifying each participant.

Even when we have a verb where two participants seem to be doing the same thing, there always turns out to be some subtle difference on closer inspection:

  1. The car collided with the truck.
  2. The car and the truck collided. (paraphrases [1], car and truck bear same thematic roles?)
  3. The car collided with the lamp post.
  4. ? The car and the lamp post collided. (does not paraphrase [3])

The following principle formalizes this idea.

    Theta Criterion
    Each argument bears one and only one theta role, and each theta role is assigned to only one argument.

And here is the principle we will use to hook this idea up to the syntax:

    Projection Principle
    Syntactic Representations must be projected from the lexicon, in that they observe the lexical properties of the items they contain.

The things we have been doing can be viewed as implementations of these principles

  1. Subcategorization frames are determined (or at least constrained) by semantic properties.(Theta criterion)
  2. Verbs must enter trees compatible with their subcat frames (Projection P)
  3. No syntactic process can add or subtract arguments. (What about passive? Causatives in languages that have them)

Two examples:

  1. Exceptional clauses:
      John expects Mary to go.
    What the data tells us: Mary bears no semantic role with respect to expect. Mary bears a semantic role with respect to go.

    What the theta criterion tells us: Mary cannot be an argument of expect. Mary must be an argument of go.

    What the projection principle tells us: The syntactic position the NP Mary occupies cannot be subcategorized for by expect in the lexicon. The NP Mary must occupy the subject position for go (in order to be assigned a role by go).

    Conclusion: The structure must look like this:

      [V' [V expect ] [ S [NP Mary ] [I to ] [VP go]]]
  2. Control Verbs:
      John persuaded Mary to go.
    What the data tells us: Mary bears a semantic role with respect to persuade. Mary bears a semantic role with respect to go.

    What the theta criterion tells us: Mary must be an argument of persuade. Mary must be an argument of go. But it also tells us no NP can receive two roles. Therefore there must be two NPs, one of which is empty.

    What the projection principle tells us: The syntactic position the NP Mary occupies must be subcategorized for by persuade in the lexicon. The empty NP Mary controls must occupy the subject position for go (in order to be assigned a role by go).

    Conclusion: The structure must look like this:

      [V' [V persuade ] [NP Mary ] [ S' [Comp e ] [S [NP PRO ] [I to ] [VP go]]]]

The Lexicon: What it is

  1. Lexical Entries
  2. Lexical Redundancy Rules

For example:

Redundancy rules make predictions about subcategorization from meaning: Examples:

  1. Whether a head takes an interrogative complements (+WH) or not: interrogative and dubitative predicates do. ( know, wonder, find out, realize, wonder, inquire, ask)
  2. Desiderative and emotive predicates take infinitival complements (-FIN) ( prefer, aim, dying(adj), astound, want, hate, love, etc )
  3. Cognitive and assertive predicates take finite(+FIN) declarative(-WH) clauses
  4. Exceptional clauses go with cognitive or assertive verbs (know, believe, imagine, declare, report)
Note: You do not have to remember any of these terms for classifying predicates. Just be familiar with the idea that certain subcategorization properties are semantically predictable.

Other examples of principles predicting information, which therefore need not be listed in the lexicon or in phrase structure ruiles

  1. Strict adjacency: An NP complement must be adjacent to its head.
  2. Periphery Principle: Heads occur at the periphery of X-bar
  3. Head First Principle: Heads precede complements

Syntactic Principles About Clausal Complements

  1. Interrogative clauses are Sbars (eithe rifnite or nonfinite). Therefore no interrogtaive exceptional clauses (=S not Sbar). Or small clauses.
  2. A non-finite clause with an overt subject must have an overt complementizer.
      I'm dying for/*e you to do it.
  3. A non-finite clause with a PRO subject requires an empty complementizer.
      I'm dying *for/e to do it.
  4. There is a class of verbs taking nonfinite complements which permits explicit for complementizers (and there is a class which does not):
    1. I would prefer/like/hope for you to go.
    2. Harry dared/attempted *for her/e to go.
  5. Exceptional clauses and small clauses must immediately follow their heads.
  6. It follows that there are no verbs foo that would fit in the following frame
      * I fooed Mary [SJohn to go.]
    Though there are transitive verbs which take SBar complements:
      I signalled Mary for John to go.
  7. There are 4 types of small clauses which may be indvidually subcategorized for (p. 359): AC (adjectival), PC (prepositional), NC (nomial), and VC (verbal). Within VC we have the null, -en, and -ing types (61 d,e,f).

Syntactic Principles About Other Complements

  1. Nouns and Adjectives take the full range of complements but do not take NP complements, small clause or exceptional clause complements:
    1. Rome's destruction of/*e the city
    2. Fred's belief that John would go
    3. * Fred's belief of John to go
    4. * The Parliament's election of him king
  2. Prepositions take the full range of complements including small clause and finite clausal complements, but do not allow that:
    1. since the party
    2. since *that/e Mary left
    3. until the party
    4. until *that/e Mary left
    5. *while the party
    6. while *that/e Mary partied
    7. Mary's turned on by [SC John Wayne on a horse ]