1.3.2 Predicates and arguments

In the first case, Harold is the one doing the hitting and Henry is the one getting hit whereas in the second Sam does the seeing and Simon gets seen. However, these arguments play very different roles in the two events. With hit the one doing the hitting consciously performs an action and the one who gets hit is affected in some way by this. We call an argument who deliberately performs an action an agent and one who or which is acted upon a patient. With see, the arguments are not interpreted as agent and patient however: Sam is not performing any action and Simon is not getting acted upon in (35b). Instead, we call these arguments experiencer, for the one who does the seeing, and theme, for the one who gets seen. Collectively, we call terms such as agent and patient, thematic roles, or Θ-roles for short. I will not provide a definitive list of possible theta roles and their definitions here as such a list does not exist. Different linguists tend to make use of different Θ-roles and there is very little agreement amongst them. Fortunately, the identity of Θ-roles has very little bearing on most syntactic processes and we can get a long way without precise definitions (exercise 3 introduces a wider list of Θ-roles than given here).

1.3.4.2 Nouns

In this example, Emily has to be interpreted as the one who experiences the embarrassment rather than someone who possesses it outside of their emotions. But this is a general semantic fact: some things can be possessed and other things cannot. The fact remains, however, that of those things that are able to be possessed, the relationship between them and the possessor is uniform and is not affected by the meaning of the noun. This is very different from other argument–predicate relationships:

1.3.4.2 Nouns

A final difference between possessors and arguments is that the possessor relationship is restricted to nouns whereas thematic relationships seem to be available to all thematic categories: we can find themes, experiencers, etc. for verbs, nouns or adjectives.

2.1.1 The building blocks of sentences

In (a) we have the verb in the second position, with one of its arguments (the experiencer) to the left, in first position, and another of its arguments to the right in the third position. In (b) however, everything moves one step to the right to accommodate the word yesterday which now occupies first position. The point we made previously is that the ordinal placement of a word in a sentence is unimportant as it is clear that the words Sid, saw and Wendy are in the same grammatical positions in both sentences, even though they are in different ordinal positions in the string of words.

2.2.1 The subject

The verb hit has two arguments: the one who does the hitting, the agent, and the one who gets hit, the patient. But (53) is unambiguous: it must be interpreted with Henry as the agent and Thomas as the patient. Indeed, agent is a very typical Θ-role for a subject to have. Experiencer is also a typical subject Θ-role:

2.2.1 The subject

In both these cases, the argument Fred is interpreted as experiencer and in (56a) the experiencer is the subject, as would be expected. However, this is not the case in (56b). We see then that the relationship between thematic interpretation and grammatical position is a complex business. We will not go into the matter here as we lack the means to do so. We will return to the issue in a subsequent chapter.

3.2 Theoretical Aspects of Movement

The verb hate typically has two arguments, experiencer and theme, and is transitive with the theme as its object:

5.2.4 Transitive verbs

A transitive verb is one that has an object, i.e. a DP complement, and a subject. The subject may be agent and the object patient, or the subject could be an experiencer and the object theme. Patient and theme, from this perspective, differ in terms of a notion of affectedness: a patient is affected by the action described by the verb while a theme is unaffected by it:

5.2.4 Transitive verbs

In (72a) we have the past tense form of the verb to saw, Sam is an agent and the wood is patient. In this cases a resultative modifier like to pieces can be used to describe the state of the object after being acted upon. In (72b) we have the past tense form of the verb to see, Sam is an experiencer and the wood is an unaffected theme. Obviously in these cases the resultative is inappropriate because nothing directly happens to the object as a result of being seen. We will put the case of the experiencer–theme type transitives to one side for the moment and start our discussion with the agent–patient type.

5.2.4.3 Agent and experiencer subjects

5.2.4.4 Multiple light verbs

If we assume that experiencers are assigned their Θ-roles in the specifier position of a light verb, we face a problem in analysing verbs with agent and experiencer arguments as in (88). What is puzzling about these verbs is how they can exist at all, given our assumption that agent and experiencer receive their Θ-roles in the same position. The only analysis available to us, if we wish to maintain the UTAH, is to assume that there are two light verbs in these constructions, one for the agent and one for the experiencer:

5.2.4.4 Multiple light verbs

But while this seems a possible analysis for these structures therefore, it does raise the question of why the light verbs are ordered as they are: why is the agentive one always higher than the experiencer one? The answer may have to do with the notion of extended projection. The essence of this is that the thematic verb to some extent controls the Θ-roles assigned by the light verbs. It has been proposed in several places that there is a hierarchy of Θ-roles which plays a part in the order in which they are assigned. For example, we might suppose that agents are higher in the hierarchy than experiencers and these in turn are higher than themes:

5.2.4.4 Multiple light verbs

The Θ-roles lower on the hierarchy have to be discharged on to an argument before those higher up. The UTAH ensures that Θ-roles can only be discharged in certain positions and in combination with (98) we get the following pattern. The first Θ-role to be assigned is the theme, if there is one. As this can be assigned to the specifier of the thematic verb it will be. Next the experiencer Θ-role must be assigned, providing there is one. This can only be assigned to the specifier of a light verb so the thematic verb will extend its projection to include a light verb and the experiencer Θ-role will be assigned to its specifier. Finally, if there is an agent, again this can only be assigned to the specifier of a light verb and hence will force the verb to extend its projection. If there already is an extended projection, a second light verb will be added to accommodate the agent. Thus, the agent will always be higher in the structure than the experiencer and theme.

5.2.5 Intransitive verbs

Intransitive verbs are verbs with one argument, but unlike unaccusatives this argument is either an agent or an experiencer, i.e. one of the Θ-roles assigned to the specifier of a light verb. Accordingly then, we may analyse them as involving the following structure:

5.4.1 Adverbs

This structure has the adverb phrase adjoined to the lower vP and the verb moving to the higher light verb. Such a structure would be possible either when there is both an agent and an experiencer argument, or if the top light verb is an aspectual morpheme. The structure that would be produced however would be ungrammatical as the adverb would appear between the verb and its theme argument.

8.1.1 Clauses without CP

But if this is true, where does the accusative Case on the subject of the non-finite clause in (6b) come from? We know that accusative Case is assigned by light verbs in other situations, could the accusative Case come from a light verb in this structure? Consider the structure in more detail. The verb believe has an experiencer subject and hence there is a light verb which assigns this Θ-role. The clausal complement of the verb sits in its specifier position and the verb will move to support the light verb:

8.1.1 Clauses without CP

Another observation that supports the claim that the subject of the exceptional clause is Case marked by the light verb of the exceptional verb is that these verbs can undergo passivisation. Recall that in English it is only verbs which have a Case assigning light verb that can undergo the process, which we described as the replacement of the agentive or experiencer light verb with the passive morpheme which neither assigns a Θ-role to the subject position nor assigns Case to the specifier of the VP. Consider what happens when an exceptional verb is passivised:

8.1.1 Clauses without CP

The two immediate consequences of this are that the experiencer Θ-role fails to be assigned, leaving the specifier position of the vP empty, and the subject of the exceptional clause is left without Case given our assumption that the passive morpheme is not a Case assigner and neither is the non-finite inflection. Thus if the subject were to stay in this position, it would violate the Case Filter, which demands all DPs to receive Case, and hence the sentence would be ungrammatical, which it is: