English Syntax: An Introduction

Jong-Bok Kim and Peter Sells

January 11, 2008

CENTER FOR THE STUDY

OF LANGUAGE
AND INFORMATION
Contents

Preface xi

1 Some Basic Properties of English Syntax 1

1.1 Some Remarks on the Essence of Human Language 1
1.2 How We Discover Rules 4
1.3 Why Do We Study Syntax and What Is It Good for? 7
1.4 Exercises 9

2 From Words to Major Phrase Types 11

2.1 Introduction 11
2.2 Lexical Categories 12
2.2.1 Determining the Lexical Categories 12
2.3 Grammar with Lexical Categories 17
2.4 Phrasal Categories 19
2.5 Phrase Structure Rules 22
2.5.1 NP: Noun Phrase 22
2.5.2 VP: Verb Phrase 23
2.5.3 AP: Adjective Phrase 25
2.5.4 AdvP: Adverb Phrase 25
2.5.5 PP: Preposition Phrase 26
2.6 Grammar with Phrases 26
2.7 Exercises 31

3 Syntactic Forms, Grammatical Functions, and Semantic Roles 35

3.1 Introduction 35
3.2 Grammatical Functions 36

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vi / E NGLISH S YNTAX : A N I NTRODUCTION

3.2.1 Subjects 36
3.2.2 Direct and Indirect Objects 38
3.2.3 Predicative Complements 39
3.2.4 Oblique Complements 40
3.2.5 Modifiers 40
3.3 Form and Function Together 41
3.4 Semantic Roles 43
3.5 Exercises 46

4 Head, Complements, and Modifiers 49

4.1 Projections from Lexical Heads to Phrases 49
4.1.1 Internal vs. External Syntax 49
4.1.2 Notion of Head, Complements, and Modifiers 50
4.2 Differences between Complements and Modifiers 52

4.3 PS Rules, X -Rules, and Features 55
4.4 Lexicon and Feature Structures 62
4.4.1 Feature Structures and Basic Operations 62
4.4.2 Feature Structures for Linguistic Entities 65
4.4.3 Argument Realization 66
4.4.4 Verb Types and Argument Structure 67
4.5 Exercises 71

5 More on Subjects and Complements 73

5.1 Grammar Rules and Principles 73
5.2 Feature Specifications on the Complement Values 76
5.2.1 Complements of Verbs 76
5.2.2 Complements of Adjectives 80
5.2.3 Complements of Common Nouns 82
5.3 Feature Specifications for the Subject 83
5.4 Clausal Complement or Subject 84
5.4.1 Verbs Selecting a Clausal Complement 84
5.4.2 Verbs Selecting a Clausal Subject 90
5.4.3 Adjectives Selecting a Clausal Complement 91
5.4.4 Nouns Selecting a Clausal Complement 93
5.4.5 Prepositions Selecting a Clausal Complement 94
5.5 Exercises 95
 C ONTENTS / vii

6 Noun Phrases and Agreement 97

6.1 Classification of Nouns 97
6.2 Syntactic Structures 98
6.2.1 Common Nouns 98
6.2.2 Pronouns 100
6.2.3 Proper Nouns 100
6.3 Agreement Types and Morpho-syntactic Features 101
6.3.1 Noun-Determiner Agreement 101
6.3.2 Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement 103
6.3.3 Subject-Verb Agreement 103
6.4 Semantic Agreement Features 105
6.5 Partitive NPs and Agreement 109
6.5.1 Basic Properties 109
6.5.2 Two Types of Partitive NPs 111
6.5.3 Measure Noun Phrases 116
6.6 Modifying an NP 118
6.6.1 Adjectives as Prenominal Modifiers 118
6.6.2 Postnominal Modifiers 119
6.7 Exercises 121

7 Raising and Control Constructions 125

7.1 Raising and Control Predicates 125
7.2 Differences between Raising and Control Verbs 126
7.2.1 Subject Raising and Control 126
7.2.2 Object Raising and Control 129
7.3 A Simple Transformational Approach 130
7.4 A Nontransformational Approach 132
7.4.1 Identical Syntactic Structures 132
7.4.2 Differences in Subcategorization Information 134
7.4.3 Mismatch between Meaning and Structure 138
7.5 Explaining the Differences 141
7.5.1 Expletive Subject and Object 141
7.5.2 Meaning Preservation 142
7.5.3 Subject vs. Object Control Verbs 143
7.6 Exercises 145
34 / E NGLISH S YNTAX : A N I NTRODUCTION

languages or language families.19

19 Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Part_of_speech

3

Syntactic Forms, Grammatical Functions, and

Semantic Roles

3.1 Introduction
In the previous chapter, we analyzed English sentences with PS rules. For example, the PS
rule ‘S → NP VP’ represents the basic rule for forming well-formed English sentences. As we
have seen, such PS rules allow us to represent the constituent structure of a given sentence in
terms of lexical and phrasal syntactic categories. There are other dimensions of the analysis
of sentences; one such way is using the notion of grammatical functions such as subject and
object:
(1) a. Syntactic categories: N, A, V, P, NP, VP, AP, . . .
b. Grammatical functions: SUBJ (Subject), OBJ (Object), MOD (Modifier), PRED
(Predicate), . . .
The notions such as SUBJ, OBJ and PRED represent the grammatical function each constituent
plays in the given sentence. For example, consider one simple sentence:
(2) The monkey scratched a boy on Monday.
This sentence can be structurally represented in terms of either syntactic categories or gram-
matical functions as in the following:
(3) a. [S [NP The monkey] [VP scratched [NP a boy] [PP on Monday]]].
b. [S [SUBJ The monkey] [PRED scratched [OBJ a boy] [MOD on Monday]]].
As shown here, the monkey is an NP in terms of its syntactic form, but is the SUBJ (subject) in
terms of its grammatical function. The NP a boy is the OBJ (object) while the verb scratched
functions as a predicator. More importantly, we consider the entire VP to be a PRED (predicate)
which describes a property of the subject. On Monday is a PP in terms of its syntactic category,
but serves as a MOD (modifier) here.
We also can represent sentence structure in terms of semantic roles. Constituents can be
considered in terms of conceptual notions of semantic roles such as agent, patient, location,

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instrument, and the like. A semantic role denotes the underlying relationship that a participant
has with the relation of the clause, expressed by the main verb. Consider the semantic roles of
the NPs in the following two sentences:1
(4) a. John tagged the monkey in the forest.
b. The monkey was tagged in the forest by John.
Both of these sentences describe a situation in which someone named John tagged a particular
monkey. In this situation, John is the agent and the monkey is the patient of the tagging event.
This in turn means that in both cases, John has the semantic role of agent (agt), whereas the
monkey has the semantic role of patient (pat), even though their grammatical functions are
different. We thus can assign the following semantic roles to each constituent of the examples:
(5) a. [[agt John] [pred tagged [pat the monkey] [loc in the forest]]].
b. [[pat The monkey] [pred was tagged [loc in the wood] [agt by John]]].
As noted here, in addition to agent and patient, we have predicate (pred) and locative (loc)
which also express the semantic role that each phrase performs in the described situation.
Throughout this book we will see that English grammar refers to these three different levels
of information (syntactic category, grammatical function, and semantic role), and they interact
with each other. For now, it may appear that they are equivalent classifications: for example, an
agent is a subject and an NP, and a patient is an object and an NP. However, as we get further
into the details of the grammar, we will see many ways in which the three levels are not simply
co-extensive.

3.2 Grammatical Functions

How can we identify the grammatical function of a given constituent? Several tests can be used
to determine grammatical function, as we show here.

3.2.1 Subjects
Consider the following pair of examples:
(6) a. [The cat] [devoured [the rat]].
b. [The rat] [devoured [the cat]].
These two sentences have exactly the same words and have the same predicator devoured. Yet
they are significantly different in meaning, and the main difference comes from what serves as
subject or object with respect to the predicator. In (6a), the subject is the cat, whereas in (6b)
it is the rat, and the object is the rat in (6a) but the cat in (6b).
The most common structure for a sentence seems to be one in which the NP subject is the one
who performs the action denoted by the verb (thus having the semantic role of agent). However,
this is not always so:
1 Semantic roles are also often called ‘thematic roles’ or ‘θ-roles (“theta roles”) in generative grammar (Chomsky
1982, 1986).
 S YNTACTIC F ORMS , G RAMMATICAL F UNCTIONS , AND S EMANTIC ROLES / 37

(7) a. My brother wears a green overcoat.

b. This car stinks.
c. It rains.
d. The committee disliked her proposal.
Wearing a green overcoat, stinking, raining, or disliking one’s proposal are not agentive activi-
ties; they indicate stative descriptions or situations. Such facts show that we cannot rely on the
semantic roles of agent for determining subjecthood.
More reliable tests for subjecthood come from syntactic tests such as agreement, tag ques-
tions, and subject-auxiliary inversion.

Agreement: The main verb of a sentence agrees with the subject in English:
(8) a. She never writes/*write home.
b. These books *saddens/sadden me.
c. Our neighbor takes/*take his children to school in his car.
As we noted in Chapter 1, simply being closer to the main verb does not entail subjecthood:
(9) a. The book, including all the chapters in the first section, is/*are very interesting.
b. The effectiveness of teaching and learning *depend/depends on several factors.
c. The tornadoes that tear through this county every spring *is/are more than just a
nuisance.
The subject in each example is book, effectiveness, and tornadoes respectively, even though
there are nouns closer to the main verb. This indicates that it is not simply the linear position of
the NP that determines agreement; rather, agreement shows us what the subject of the sentence
is.

Tag questions: A tag question, a short question tagged onto the end of an utterance, is also a
reliable subjecthood test:
(10) a. The lady singing with a boy is a genius, isn’t she/*isn’t he?
b. With their teacher, the kids have arrived safely, haven’t they/ *hasn’t he?
The pronoun in the tag question agrees with the subject in person, number, and gender – it
refers back to the subject, but not necessarily to the closest NP, nor to the most topical one. The
pronoun she in (10a) shows us that lady is the head of the subject NP in that example, and they
in (10b) leads us to assign the same property to kids. The generalization is that a tag question
must contain a pronoun which identifies the subject of the clause to which the tag is attached.

Subject-auxiliary inversion: In forming questions and other sentence-types, English has

subject-auxiliary inversion, which applies only to the subject.
(11) a. This teacher is a genius.
b. The kids have arrived safely.
38 / E NGLISH S YNTAX : A N I NTRODUCTION

c. It could be more detrimental.

(12) a. Is this teacher a genius?
b. Have the kids arrived safely?
c. Could it be more detrimental?
As seen here, the formation of ‘Yes/No questions’ such as these involves the first tensed auxil-
iary verb moving across the subject: more formally, the auxiliary verb is inverted with respect to
the subject, hence the term ‘subject-auxiliary inversion’. This is not possible with a non-subject:
(13) a. The kids in our class have arrived safely.
b. *Have in our class the kids arrived safely?
Subject-auxiliary inversion provides another reliable subjecthood test.

3.2.2 Direct and Indirect Objects

A direct object (DO) is canonically an NP, undergoing the process denoted by the verb:
(14) a. His girlfriend bought this computer.
b. That silly fool broke the teapot.
However, this is not a solid generalization. The objects (OBJ) in (15a) and (15b) are not really
affected by the action. In (15a) the dog is experiencing something, and in (15b) the thunder is
somehow causing some feeling in the dog:
(15) a. Thunder frightens [the dog].
b. The dog fears [thunder].
Once again, the data show us that we cannot identify the object based on semantic roles. A
much more firm criterion is the syntactic construction of passivization, in which a notional
direct object appears as subject. The sentences in (16) can be turned into passive sentences in
(17):
(16) a. His girlfriend bought this computer for him.
b. The child broke the teapot by accident.
(17) a. This computer was bought for him by his girlfriend.
b. The teapot was broken by the child by accident.
What we can notice here is that the objects in (16) are ‘promoted’ to subject in the passive
sentences. The test comes from the fact that non-object NPs cannot be promoted to the subject:
(18) a. This item belongs to the student.
b. *The student is belonged to by this item.
(19) a. He remained a good friend to me.
b. *A good friend is remained to me (by him).
The objects that undergo passivization are direct objects, distinct from indirect objects.
 S YNTACTIC F ORMS , G RAMMATICAL F UNCTIONS , AND S EMANTIC ROLES / 39

An indirect object (IO) is one which precedes a direct object (DO), as in (20); IOs are NPs
and have the semantic roles of goal, recipient, or benefactive:
(20) a. I threw [the puppy] [the ball]. (IO = goal)
b. John gave [the boys] [the CDs]. (IO = recipient)
c. My mother baked [me] [a birthday cake]. (IO = benefactive)
In examples like (20), passive has the property of making the IO into the subject.
(21) a. The boys were given the CDs (by John).
b. She was sent a review copy of the book (by the publisher).
Note that sentences with the IO-DO order are different from those where the semantic role
of the IO is expressed as an oblique PP, following the DO (such a process is sometimes called
dative alteration):
(22) a. John gave the CDs to the boys.
b. The publisher sent a review copy of the book to her.
c. My mother baked a cake for me.
In this kind of example, it is once again the DO which can be passivized, giving examples like
the following:
(23) a. The CDs were given to the boys by John.
b. A review copy of the book was sent to her by the publisher.
c. This nice cake was baked for me by my mother.

3.2.3 Predicative Complements

There also are NPs which follow a verb but which do not behave as DOs or IOs. Consider the
following sentences:
(24) a. This is my ultimate goal.
b. Michelle became an architect.
(25) a. They elected Graham chairman.
b. I consider Andrew the best writer
The italicized elements here are traditionally called ‘predicative complements’ in the sense that
they function as the predicate of the subject or the object. However, even though they are NPs,
they do not passivize:
(26) a. *Chairman was elected Graham.
b. *The best writer was considered Andrew.
The difference between objects and predicative complements can also be seen in the following
contrast:
(27) a. John made Kim a great doll.
b. John made Kim a great doctor.
40 / E NGLISH S YNTAX : A N I NTRODUCTION

Even though the italicized expressions here are both NPs, they function differently. The NP a
great doll in (27a) is the direct object, as in John made a great doll for Kim, whereas the NP
a great doctor in (27b) cannot be an object: it serves as the predicate of the object Kim. If we
think of part of the meaning informally, only in the second example would we say that the final
NP describes the NP Kim.
(28) a. (27)a: Kim = a great doll
b. (27)b: Kim = a great doctor
In addition, phrases other than NPs can serve as predicative complements:
(29) a. The situation became terrible.
b. This map is what he wants.
c. The message was that you should come on time.
(30) a. I made Kim angry.
b. I consider him immoral.
c. I regard Andrew as the best writer.
d. They spoil their kids rotten.
The italicized complements function to predicate a property of the subject in (29) and of the
object in (30).

3.2.4 Oblique Complements

Consider now the italicized expressions in (31):
(31) a. John put books in the box.
b. John talked to Bill about the exam.
c. She reminded him of the last time they met.
d. They would inform Mary of any success they have made.
These italicized expressions are neither objects nor predicative complements. Since their pres-
ence is obligatory, for syntactic well-formedness, they are called oblique complements. Roughly
speaking, ‘oblique’ contrasts with the ‘direct’ functions of subject and object, and oblique
phrases are typically expressed as PPs in English.
As we have seen before, most ditransitive verbs can also take oblique complements:
(32) a. John gave a book to the student.
b. John bought a book for the student.
The PPs here, which cannot be objects since they are not NPs, also do not serve as predicate of
the subject or object – they relate directly to the verb, as oblique complements.

3.2.5 Modifiers
The functions of DO, IO, predicative complement, and oblique complement all have one com-
mon property: they are all selected by the verb, and we view them as being present to ‘comple-
 S YNTACTIC F ORMS , G RAMMATICAL F UNCTIONS , AND S EMANTIC ROLES / 41

ment’ the verb to form a legitimate VP. Hence, these are called complements (COMPS), and
typically they cannot be omitted.
Unlike these COMPS, there are expressions which do not complement the predicate in the
same way, and which are truly optional:
(33) a. The bus stopped suddenly.
b. Shakespeare wrote his plays a long time ago.
c. They went to the theater in London.
d. He failed chemistry because he can’t understand it.
The italicized expressions here are all optional and function as modifiers (also called ‘adjuncts’
or ‘adverbial’ expressions). These modifiers specify the manner, location, time, or reason,
among many other properties, of the situations expressed by the given sentences – informally,
they are the (how, when, where, and why) phrases.
One additional characteristic of modifiers is that they can be stacked up, whereas comple-
ments cannot.
(34) a. *John gave Tom [a book] [a record].
b. I saw this film [several times] [last year] [during the summer].
As shown here, temporal adjuncts like several times and last year can be repeated, whereas the
two complements a book and a record in (34a) cannot. Of course, temporal adjuncts do not
become the subject of a passive sentence, suggesting that they cannot serve as objects.
(35) a. My uncle visited today.
b. *Today was visited by my uncle.

3.3 Form and Function Together

We now can analyse each sentence in terms of grammatical functions as well as the structural
constituents. Let us see how we can analyze a simple sentence along these two dimensions:
(36) S
qqqVVVVVV
qq VVVV
VVVV
qqq
NP: SUBJ VP: PRED
qq qMMMM M
qqq MMMMM
qq MMMM qq MM
qqq qqq
Det A N V NP: MOBJ
qq MMMM
qqqqq MMM
q
The little cat devoured Det N

a mouse

As represented here, the expressions the little cat and a mouse are both NPs, but they have
different grammatical functions, SUBJ and OBJ. The VP as a whole functions as the predicate
42 / E NGLISH S YNTAX : A N I NTRODUCTION

of the sentence, describing the property of the subject.2

Assigning grammatical functions within complex sentences is no different:
(37) S
iiiiiUUUUUU
iii UUUU
iiii UU
NP: SUBJ VP: PRED
iiiJJJJ
iii iiii JJ
J
ii
N V CP: OBJ
U
iiiiiii UUUUUUU
iii UUUU
ii
John believes C SJ
iiiiiii JJJJ
i JJ
iiii
that NP: SUBJ
6 VP: PRED
J
 666 tt JJJJ
 6 ttt JJ
 tt
the cat V NP: OBJ

devoured a mouse

Each clause has its own SUBJ and PRED: John is the subject of the higher clause, whereas the
cat is the subject of the lower clause. We also can notice that there are two OBJs: the CP is the
object of the higher clause whereas the NP is that of the lower clause.3
Every category in a given sentence has a grammatical function, but there is no one-to-one
mapping between category such as NP or CP and its possible grammatical function(s). The
following data set shows us how different phrase types can function as SUBJ or OBJ:4
(38) a. [NP The termites] destroyed the sand castle.
b. [VP Being honest] is not an easy task.
c. [CP That John passed] surprised her.
d. [VP To finish this work on time] is almost unexpected.
e. [PP Under the bed] is a safe place to hide.
(39) a. I sent [NP a surprise present] to John.
b. They wondered [S what she did yesterday].
c. They believed [CP that everybody would pass the test].
d. Are you going on holiday before or after Easter? I prefer [PP after Easter].
2A word of caution is in order here. We should not confuse the functional term ‘adverbial’ with the category term
‘adverb’. The term ‘adverbial’ is used interchangeably with ‘adjunct’ or ‘modifier’, whereas ‘adverb’ only designates a
part of speech. In English almost any kind of phrasal category can function as an adverbial element, but only a limited
set of words are adverbs.
3 The phrase CP is headed by the complementizer that.
4 In due course, we will discuss in detail the properties of each phrase type here.
 S YNTACTIC F ORMS , G RAMMATICAL F UNCTIONS , AND S EMANTIC ROLES / 43

As the examples in (38) and (39) show, not only NPs but also infinitival VPs and CPs can also
function as SUBJ and OBJ. The following tag-question, subject-verb agreement, and subject-
hood tests show us that an infinitival VP and CP can function as the subject.
(40) a. [That John passed] surprised her, didn’t it?
b. [[That the march should go ahead] and [that it should be cancelled]] have/*has been
argued by different people at different times.
(41) a. [To finish it on time] made quite a statement, didn’t it?
b. [[To delay the march] and [to go ahead with it]] have/*has been argued by different
people at different times.
The same goes for MOD, as noted before. Not only AdvP, but also phrases such as NP, S,
VP, or PP can function as a modifier:
(42) a. The little cat devoured a mouse [NP last night].
b. John left [AdvP very early].
c. John has been at Stanford [PP for four years].
d. John studied hard [VP to pass the exam].
e. She disappeared [S when the main party arrived].
The sentence (42a) will have the following structure:
(43) SV
h hhhhhh VVVVVVV
hhh VVVV
hhhh VV
NP: SUBJ VP: PRED
qqqqMMMMM qq qqVVVVVVVV
q MMM q VVVV
qqq qqq VV
Det A N VP: PRED NP: MOD
qqqMMMM ~~@@@
qq MMMM ~~ @@@
qqq ~~
The little cat V NP: OBJ last night
<<<
 <<

devoured a mouse
Here the expression last night is an adverbial NP in the sense that it is categorically an NP but
functions as a modifier (adjunct) to the VP.
As we go through this book, we will see that the distinction between grammatical functions
and categorical types is crucial in the understanding of English syntax.

3.4 Semantic Roles

As noted before, semantic roles were introduced as a way of classifying the arguments of pred-
icators (mostly verbs and adjectives) into a closed set of participant types. Even though we
cannot make any absolute generalizations about the relationship between grammatical func-
tions and semantic roles, the properties of semantic roles do interact in regular ways with cer-
44 / E NGLISH S YNTAX : A N I NTRODUCTION

tain grammatical constructions. A list of the most relevant thematic roles and their associated
properties is given below.5
• Agent: A participant which the meaning of the verb specifies as doing or causing some-
thing, possibly intentionally. Examples: subject of eat, kick, hit, hammer, etc.
(44) a. John ate his noodle quietly.
b. A boy hit the ball.
c. A smith hammered the metal.
• Patient: A participant which the verb characterizes as having something happen to it, and
as being affected by what happens to it. Examples: object of kick, hit, hammer, etc.6
(45) a. A boy hit the ball.
b. A smith hammered the metal.
• Experiencer: A participant who is characterized as aware of something. Examples: subject
of perception verbs like feel, smell, hear, see, etc.
(46) a. The students felt comfortable in the class.
b. The student heard a strange sound.
• Theme: A participant which is characterized as changing its position or condition, or
as being in a state or position. Examples: direct object of give, hand, subject of come,
happen, die, etc.
(47) a. John gave a book to the students.
b. John died last night.
• Benefactive: The entity that benefits from the action or event denoted by the predicator.
Examples: oblique complement of make, buy, etc.
(48) a. John made a doll for his son.
b. John bought a lot of books for his sons.
• Source: The one from which motion proceeds. Examples: subject of promise, object of
deprive, free, cure, etc.
(49) a. John promised Bill to leave tomorrow morning.
b. John deprived his sons of game cards.
• Goal: The one to which motion proceeds. Examples: subject of receive, buy, indirect
object of tell, give, etc.
(50) a. Mary received an award from the department.
b. John told the rumor to his friend.
• Location: The thematic role associated with the NP expressing the location in a sentence
with a verb of location. Examples: subject of keep, own, retain, locative PPs, etc.
(51) a. John put his books in the attic.
5 The definition of semantic roles given here is adopted from Dowty (1989).
6 Patient and theme are often unified into ‘undergoer’ in the sense that both the patient and theme individual undergo
the action in question.
 S YNTACTIC F ORMS , G RAMMATICAL F UNCTIONS , AND S EMANTIC ROLES / 45

b. The government kept all the money.

• Instrument: The medium by which the action or event denoted by the predicator is carried
out. Examples: oblique complement of hit, wipe, hammer, etc.
(52) a. John hit the ball with a bat.
b. John wiped the window with a towel.
An important advantage of having such semantic roles available to us is that it allows us to
capture the relationship between two related sentences, as we have already seen. As another
example, consider the following pair:
(53) a. [agt The cat] chased [pat the mouse].
b. [pat The mouse] was chased by [agt the cat].
Even though the above two sentences have different syntactic structures, they have essentially
identical interpretations. The reason is that the same semantic roles assigned to the NPs: in both
examples, the cat is the agent, and the mouse is the patient. Different grammatical uses of verbs
may express the same semantic roles in different arrays.
The semantic roles also allow us to classify verbs into more fine-grained groups. For exam-
ple, consider the following examples:
(54) a. There still remains an issue to be solved.
b. There lived a man with his grandson.
c. There arrived a tall, red-haired and incredibly well dressed man.
(55) a. *There sang a man with a pipe.
b. *There dances a man with an umbrella.
All the verbs are intransitive, but not all are acceptable in the there-construction. The dif-
ference can come from the semantic role of the postverbal NP, as assigned by the main verb.
Verbs like arrive, remain, live are taken to assign the semantic role of ‘theme’ (see the list of
roles above), whereas verbs like sing, dance assign an ‘agent’ role. We thus can conjecture that
there-constructions do not accept the verb whose subject carries an agent semantic role.
While semantic roles provide very useful ways of describing properties across different con-
structions, we should point out that the theoretical status of semantic roles is still unresolved.7
For example, there is no agreement about exactly which and how many semantic roles are
needed. The problem is illustrated by the following simple examples:
(56) a. John resembles his mother.
b. A is similar to B.
What kind of semantic roles do the arguments here have? Both participants seem to be playing
the same role in these examples – they both cannot be either agent or patient or theme. They are
also cases where we might not be able to pin down the exact semantic role:
(57) a. John runs into the house.
7 See Levin and Rappaport Hovav (2005) for further discussion of this issue.
46 / E NGLISH S YNTAX : A N I NTRODUCTION

b. Mary looked at the sky.

The subject John in (57a) is both agent and theme: it is agent since it initiates and sustains the
movement but also theme since it is the object that moves.8 Also, the subject Mary in (57b) can
either be an experiencer or an agent depending on her intention – one can just look at the sky
with no purpose at all.9
Even though there are theoretical issues involved in adopting semantic roles in the grammar,
there are also many advantages of using them. We can make generalizations about the grammar
of the language: typically the ‘agent’ takes the subject position, while an NP following the
word from is serving as the ‘source’. As we will see in the next chapter, semantic roles are
also recognized as the standard concepts used for organizing predicate-argument structures for
predicates within the lexicon. In the subsequent chapters, we will refer to semantic roles in
various places.

3.5 Exercises

1. Construct sentences containing the following grammatical functions:

(i) a. subject, predicator, direct object
b. subject, predicator, indirect object, direct object
c. subject, predicator, adjunct
d. adjunct, subject, predicator
e. adjunct, subject, predicator, direct object
f. subject, predicator, direct object, oblique complement
g. subject, predicator, predicative complement
h. subject, predicator, direct object, predicative complement
i. subject, predicator, predicative complement, adjunct
j. subject, predicator, direct object, predicative complement, adjunct

2. Give the grammatical function of the italicized phrases in the following examples:
(i) a. All of his conversation was reported to me.
b. Sandy removed her ballet shoes.
c. The school awarded a few of the girls in Miss Kim’s class scholarships.
d. She was the nicest teacher in the Senior School.
e. They elected him America’s 31st President.
f. The next morning we set out for Seoul.
8 Jackendoff (1987) develops an account of thematic roles in which agency and motion are two separate dimensions,
so, in fact, a single NP can be agent and theme.
9 To overcome the problem of assigning the correct semantic role to an argument, one can assume that each predicator

has its own (individual) semantic roles. For example, the verb kick, instead of having an agent and a patient, has two
individualized semantic roles ‘kicker’ and ‘kicked’. See Pollard and Sag (1987).