SEMANTIC ROLES?

Hi there!

I've got a problem, namely I've been struggling with Descriptive Grammar and now I can't get to grips with Semantic Roles. So...

So we know that Semantic roles of Subject are :

Agent(doer)
Instrument
Experiencer
Locative
Temporal
Eventive
Empty
Recipent

BUT, if these were semantic roles, then what are AFFECTED and EFFECTED subjects?
i.e John fell down ( John - experiencer + affected subject?) Two roles at once? Is it possible?

As far as the Complement is concerned.... We've got :
Current Attributive
Resulting Attributive
Subject Complement
Object Complement

Can we mix them?
i.e The weather is hot. ( hot - Subject complement + Current attributive) Again, two roles at once?

Besides... that's all? Don't we recognize any others roles for Complement?

Adverbials, Verbs and Objects are quite understandable so i won't ask about them...

Could anyone help me solve that problem?

s

‘John’ is not an experiencer here. It may look like he is but he is not. Here ‘John’ has the affected role (not effected), the same as for example in ‘John has taken a beating’
He would be an experiencer in ‘John hurt his leg’ or ‘John had a bad dream’
Normally, the role of expereincer can be assigned to those animate subjects with copulars followed by an emotive complement as in ‘John is happy’ or to those with transitive verbs as above with ‘hurt’ and ‘take’.


Look, the term ‘subject’ ( as well as object) should be understood as a functional category of the clause structure. These are further broken down into their subclasses respectively, subject and object complements.
Now, what do you want to mix here? It’s like mixing a cow with milk. A subject complement ‘hot’ is not a ‘semantic role’ per se, it’s a sub-constituent that MAY HAVE a semantic role equivalent to that of a current attribute. By the same token, the same adjective ‘hot’ but now as an object complement can be a current attribute as in “ I want my coffee hot”
The same goes for resulting ones:

for subject complemt (resulting) – John became restless ( or maybe even ‘hot’, who knows? -:)
for object complement (resulting) – John drives me mad

Thank you for your reply. But let me ask one question, just in case i didn't catch something. Let's analyse these sentecnes describing semantical functions of their elements :

As to your grandpa, he died an easy death. ("as to your grandpa" - should we treat it like a Conjunct? or can we divide these phrase even into smaller chunks? , "he" - subject - experiecner? , "died" - intransitive verb?, "an easy death" - verb complement?)

We laid him on the sofa. ( "We" - subject - agent?, "laid" - verb - ditransitive?, "him" - direct object - affected?, "on the sofa" - Adjunct? )

The cold killed the trees. ( "The cold" - Subject - instrument?, "killed" - monotransitive verb?, "the trees" - direct object - affected? )

I found her an entertaining partner. ( "I" - subject-agent?, "found" - monotransitive verb?, "her" - direct object - affected?, "an entertaining partner" - object complement - resulting attributive?)

Suddenly, he threw himself from his horse. ("Suddenly" - adjunct?, "he" - subject-agent?, "threw" - ditransitive verb?, "himself" - direct object - affected?, "from his horse" - indirect object - affected-patient?)

na jakich studiach trzeba to wszystko wiedziec, ze tak z ciekawosci spytam

Na anglistyce. Ja to miałem na pierwszym roku na przedmiocie zwanym descriptive grammar. Przerobiliśmy całego Quirka (tę skróconą wersję). Rysowaliśmy też takie drzewka.

jak sie ciesze, ze nie poszedlem na studia z anglistyki :D

Zgadza się. Anglistyka - 2 rok. Drzewka, transformacje, rozbiory. Long live descriptive grammar!

Pan Quirk i Pan Burton-Jones to nasi idole na zajęciach. Czy jest ktoś kto pomoże to jakoś przełknąć? egz. dopuszczający do sesji przede mną, a meta-language pana Quirka nie rozwiewa moich wszystkich wątpliwości...

Też jestem na 2 roku, ale nam koleś odpuścił te dyrdymały. Teraz daje nam jeszcze większe. Ostatnio pisaliśmy mock-a i 60% roku oblało. Jest ciężko, ale w sumie to było moim celem: dostać się do dobrej szkoły, gdzie wymagają wiele.

Engee@ Jestem ciekaw jak mówisz. Ja nawet nie zdawałem sobie sprawy jak wiele daje fonetyka. Jak pozwala ona wpłynąć na flow w mówieniu, jak pomaga usunąć te polskie dźwięki, intonację i inne. Gramatyka opisowa jest po to, abyś widział poszczególne elementy w zdaniu i potem je prawidłowo ZAAKCENTOWAŁ. Ostatnio to wałkujemy.

executter@

Później może będę to Ci pomogę, ale np. Sav, bo on jest bardzo dobry w tym. Teraz spadam, bo sporo roboty jest.

surely not the way you would expect me to

No, it's not like that...

>>as to your, he died an easy death
as tou your grandpa – no it’s not a conjunct, it’s a viewpoint subjunt ( wide orientation , not narrow) Here it’s realized by non-finite clause but it can be finite too, like ‘As far is .....concerned/goes’

“he died an easy death”
‘an easy death – the verb ‘die’ is a pure intransitive verb by default but here ‘an easy death’ is a qusi-object ( cognate), it has analogous interactions with the adverbial meaning of “he died easily”

>>We laid him on the sofa. ( "We" - subject - agent?, "laid" - verb - ditransitive?, "him" - direct object - affected?, "on the sofa" - Adjunct? )

Do yo know what the term ditransitive means? Do you see any other objects in this sentence?
the verb ‘lay’ is transitive but complenetation is complex-transitive because it’s copmplented by an object ( yes, affected) and adjunct

I’m sorry but I’m not looking further into this because quote “It is therefore likely to be misleading to talk of 'intransitive verbs', 'monotransitive verbs', 'complex transitive verbs', etc. Rather, it is often better to say that verbs have 'monotransitive use', 'monotransitive complementation', etc.” unquote (Quirk et al.)

In fact, "as to your grandpa" IS a subjunct mr. Sav. Lately news - Uniwersytet Wrocławski.

Oh, really? I wouldn't know."In fact", this is what I told you from the get-go, did I not?
Scroll up the screen, genius.

You are pointless.
Cheers

That's exactly as he put it.

damnt... i meant, CONJUNCT.

Thanks mq.

"as to your grandpa" IS a CONJUNCT.

Don't call people pointless. You won't have anyone to help you.