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Role Playing

When we talk about subjects, we often sound as if they were all agents, the active cause of some action. In fact, though, many subjects do not conform to this assumption. Consider the following sentences:
(1) George opened the door with the key
(2) The key opened the door

In sentence (1), George, a presumably animate being, is obviously taking the semantic role of agent, while the key is the instrument, a role often signalled by prepositional phrases headed by with or by means of. What, then, are we to say of the key in sentence (2)? The relationship between the key and the door opening is the same. It seems only reasonable to conclude that in some sentences an instrument serves as the subject. As a general rule, however, if an agent is specified, the instrument goes into a prepositional phrase, the agent is the preferred subject, and sentences like (3) are unacceptable:

(3) *The key opened the door by George.

In both sentences (1) and (2), the door is the direct object of the verb opened. When linguists talk about the semantic roles (or thematic roles) which various phrases play in a sentence, the someone or something that undergoes the verb's action is often called theme or patient. This is not a term one finds much in traditional school handbooks, which is why we have put it off so late. The norm in English is for this role to be played by the direct object, as in the sentences above. But let's look at some more sentences:

(4) The door was opened was opened by George.
(5) The door was opened was opened with a key.
(6) The door was opened by a key.
(7) The door was opened.

We have been saying that such sentences are in the passive voice. If we think of a sentence as a collection of semantic roles, then the passive voice is a voice which signals that we are altering the normal relationship between such roles and sentence functions. In this case, we are letting the door (the theme) serve as the subject even though an agent (or at least an instrument) is implied.

So far, open is typical of English verbs. But we can take things a step further. It turns out that open also allows a theme to serve as a sentence subject, even without the passive:

(8) The door opened with a key. (9) The door opened.

There are certainly some nuances of meaning here. Sentence (7) above certainly implies that someone opened the door, even though it doesn't specify the agent. In sentence (9), the door could have opened by accident. But the relationship between the verb and the door remains the same in all of the sentences we have considered.

And what are we to make of the relationship between the verb open and the adjective open, as in sentence (10)?

(10) The door was open.
In both sentences (9) and (10), the door was in the same state, open. When open is used as an adjective, as in sentence (10) above, we learn nothing more than that. When open was used as a verb, as in sentence (9) a little earlier, we are told that it is coming to be in a state of openness. If we are told it was opened, we are being told that someone or something (which may or may not be specified) has caused it to come to be in that state. Put that way, it may sound complicated, but our minds seem to have no trouble storing such facts in their internal dictionaries.

There are a number of verbs which routinely take non-agent subjects. Some verb s take or allow locative subjects, places which might otherwise appear in a clause with a different verb as locative adverbials, as in sentence (11). Others take experiencer subjects, for someone or something that perceives something, as in sentence (12). A few take recipient (or beneficiary) subjects, as in sentence (13) below:

(12) The garden teemed with flowers.
(13) I felt a sharp pain in my ankle.
(14) Andy got a present from his brother.

Exercise 1: Subject Roles

Can you identify the semantic roles of the subjects of the following sentences?
101. Teddy-bear lovers have come from throughout the Midwest
102. A loud gong called participants to their next session.
103. Angela carried her teddy bear everywhere.
104. Angela had been bought a new teddy bear by her husband.
105. I heard an awful lot of baby talk.
106. It was terrifying to see so many teddy bear enthusiasts.
107. Rhc saw Angela talking to her teddy bear.
108. The bar was crowded with fleeing husbands.
109. The gong sounded again.
110. The Marriott Schaumberg hosted the teddy bear convention.
111. The teddy bear had been given to Angela that morning.
112. Two women were pretending that their teddy bears were talking to each other.
113. We listened in horror.

We noted earlier that English has abandoned most of the special endings that are used to indicate the case of nouns in some other languages, leaving us with only the possessive case marker for nouns and a distinctioin between nominative, objective, and possessive cases for the personal pronouns. The exploration of semantic roles suggests that the kind of relationships other languages express through case endings still play a role in English grammar, though mainly expressed through sentence position and prepositions. For writers, the main lesson may be that changing around how those roles are presented on the surface is another way of seeking sentence variety. At a minimum, the existence of verbs allowing non-agentive subjects can be handy if one is seeking to reduce the sheer quantity of weak to be constructions in one's writing by cutting down on passives and linking verbs:

(15) (a) He was given an award for this.
(b) He received an award for this.
(16) (a) The meeting today was at the Holiday Inn.
(b) The Holiday Inn hosted today's meeting.

Just for the Record. Linguists studying semantic roles have suggested that there is a theta-criterion which says that only one noun phrase (or other nominal) can play a given semantic role in each sentence and that a given noun phrase (or other nominal) can only play one such role. In a ditransitive sentence with a verb like give, for example, the semantic role of recipient is played by the indirect object unless the sentence is made passive, in which case the recipient can become the subject of the sentence. We can have a single compound recipient, but we cannot have two separate ones:

(11) George gave Mary and Martha a present.
(12) *George gave Mary a present to Martha.

How Much of This Will be on the Test?
In the long run, about all I hope for is that you remember that the elements of sentence can be thought of in terms of semantic roles (or thematic roles) and that you not embarrass me by claiming never to have heard of the theta-criterion. In the short run, though, I'm perfectly capable of testing you on which role a given phrase is playing--agent, experiencer, instrument, locative, recipient (beneficiary), theme.