Word Classes, Semantic Roles and Grammatical Relations

Pre-reading quiz

1. Words can belong to more than one class. 
   • Yes (e.g. wish is either a NOUN or a VERB)
2. Which of the following word classes is/are uncontroversially found in all languages?
   • Verbs
   • Nouns
3. How many morphological tenses does English have?
   • 2
4. The semantic role of a noun phrase argument is determined by the …
   • Verb
5. What word class are the grammatical categories case and gender most typically associated with? 
   • Noun

Word Classes/Parts of speech/Lexical Category

Share certain features (environments/morphological operations)

Clearly there are different word classes. When we perform gap tests we cannot insert in just any word.

• A cheetah/hammer/plank can be dangerous
• A *sing/joyous/sadly can be dangerous

Distributionalism:

• General theory of language
• discovery procedure for establishing elements and language structure based on observed use.

We discover word classes by distributional evidence:

1. Gap Test
2. Modification test
   1. e.g. is the word engine in engine driver a noun or adjective? Ans: NOUN
   2. electric (adj) engine (N) driver
   3. *electrically (adv) engine (N) driver
   4. *unbelievable (adj) good (ADJ) driver
   5. unbelievably (adv) good (ADV) driver

The below are the sufficient (but not necessary) criteria to qualify in a word class!

• e.g. Not all nouns take the plural -s

  1. What different forms can the word take on in different syntactic contexts (morphosyntax/form)
  2. Where in a phrase does the word occur, what can modify it (distribution)
     1. Change the verb (like –> hate)
     2. Change the environment (Did you [[V] predicate] –> She wanted to [[V] predicate])
  3. What function does the word take on in a phrase/sentence?

Linguists do not use semantic criteria to determine word class, as they can be misdiagnosed (i.e. N = name of person/place/thing etc.)

Classes examples

• Open Classes: N/V/ADV/ADJ [Lexical content words]
• Closed Classes: P/Det/Pronoun/Conj [Functional grammatical words]

Verbs

Expresses predication.

Noun phrases surrounding verbs

• Predicate: expresses an event (or action, process, situation or state etc.)
• Argument: obligatory participant in the event (can be a singular or plural)
• Complement: non-subject phrase that is syntactically required.
• Adjunct: optional phrases

Complements and Arguments are not mutually exclusive.

Omission test for argument/complement/adjunct

If a phrase is omissible, it is likely optional.

Verb classes

• Intransitive: Singular argument only (X verb)
• Transitive: Dual arguments necessary (X verb Y)
• Ditransitive: (X verb Y to/for Z)

Ambitransitivity:

• A lot of times active/passive voice affects the arguments of the verb.
• e.g. Active takes 2 args, Passive takes 1 arg.
• Passive being characterized by auxiliary (e.g. be/get)

Tense, Aspect, Mood

Tense: a representation in grammar of location in time.

Aspect: is the action ongoing/completed.

• Progressive (e.g. -ing)
• Perfect (completed action, e.g. has (still true)/had (no longer true))
• Habitual

Mood: possibility, probability, certainty

• Indicative (actual events)
• Modal auxiiliaries (would, could, should etc.)
  • Subjunctive (hypotheticals)

Agreement (as in subject-verb agreement): properties of the noun phrase that match the verb used.

Nouns

Usually the arguments of verbs.

Noun phrase (aka nominal phrase, short NP): a phrase with

• noun or pronoun as its head
• performs same grammatical role as noun

Semantic roles of NPs

Roles don’t have a universally agreed upon definition.

• Agent: Deliberate performer of action
• Experiencer: Subject of mental/emo process/state
• Stimulus
• Patient/Theme: Thing that action is affecting
• Recipient/Beneficiary
• Location
  • Goal
  • Source
  • Path
• Instrument: Tool

The same subject can have multiple semantic roles.

Syntactic Roles of NPs

• Subject: normal position immediately before the verb (regardless active or passive voice!)
• (Direct) Object: after the verb
• Predicative Complement (NOT OBJECT): A is B (B is in the predicate and a state but not an active participant.)
• Prepositional (Indirect) Object: A does B on C.

SVA

Subjects control Subject/Verb Agreement.

Case Marking

Subjects also exhibit Case marking: some NPs or pronouns have special forms depending on its grammatical relation.

• I/me, She/her, He/him, They/them
• “Subject” forms (first ver.) = nominative case forms

Subject-Auxiliary inversion, Tagging

• He has/Has he?
• He does, doesn’t he?

Noun characteristics

• Person: First/Second/Third (relation of speaker/addressee/outsiders)
• Number: Singular/Plural
• Gender: Noun classification (not just M/F!)
• Possession: Can this noun be possessed by a person? If it can be, is it alienable/inalienable to the person?
• Case: Nominative (of subject)/Accusative (of object)
  • Grammatical relation
  • Sometimes conveyed by position in sentence, sometimes marked morphologically on the NP itself.

Adjectives

Word class Tests (indicative but not necessary):

1. Intensity Modifier aka Intensifiers (“really/very/mildly”)
   1. Fails when the adjective itself isn’t gradable (e.g. an item cannot be more residual than another)
2. Comparison category (comparative/superlative/equative)
   1. Fails when adjective is not comparable
3. Agreement (in other languages, adjectives must agree with the noun its modifying)
   1. le vin blanc/la porte blanche (blanc is M, blanche is F; French)
4. “seems - “ test

Functions:

• Attributive: “The very pretty lady”
  • Modifying a noun only
• Predicative: is in the predicate, is in complement. “The lady is very pretty”
  • Preceding verb (“She is pretty”)

If ADJ is not an open class in the language, then N/NP/V takes over the functions of ADJ in other languages.

• e.g. Ari is kind (ADJ) / Ari has kindness (N)

Adverbs

Traditionally ragbag category, undefined

Some are related to adjectives - Shared properties:

• Intensifier tests
• Comparison category tests
• As __ as

Superclass of adj and adv: A

• Adjectives modify nouns
• Adverbs modify non-nouns

(Not adjunct! Any word class can be an adjunct)

Determiners

Position in English: always right before N/NP “[Det] [N/NP]”

• Articles: indicate definitiveness
  • Definiteness: a semantic feature of NPs, distinguishing between identifiable NPs and inidentifiable ones.
• Demonstratives (these/this/those)
• Wh-determiners (5W1H)
• Quantifiers (some, each, many)
• Possessive determiners (my, his, our)

Not pronouns!

Cross-linguisticaly, determiners are common but not obligatory. Many languages have a much more restricted set of determiners.

Preposition

Tests:

• Right/straight/just modifier test
  • “Just” is problematic!
  • There are some prepositions that can never be modified by these!
• Transitive or Intransitive
  • Transitive: of
  • Intransitive:
  • But don’t bear tense, aspect, mood etc.
  • Adverbs never modify nouns but PPs often do
  • Adverbs never complement the copula “be”-words but PPs often can