Abstract
This chapter examines several constructions and discusses the best way to assign thematic relations to the complements of the sentence: constructions of force and resistance; constructions involving reciprocity relations; constructions containing the Portuguese verbs estar and ser, both translatable as “be” in English; discourse topic constructions; constructions denoting time of day; constructions involving possession relations; constructions involving alternate stimulus; transitive and ergative constructions. Derivations are given for sentences containing examples of surface contact; psychological feeling; and some curious cases of multiple syntactic coding of the same cognitive structure. In each case it is shown that assignment by default of a thematic relation of at least one complement is the best analysis to account for the observed data.
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- 1.
These notions come from Talmy (1988), who also studies their grammatical significance.
- 2.
Ao is the agglutination of the preposition a plus the article o.
- 3.
It has no effect on presupposition, as is well known: [2] still pressuposes that there has been a storm, and so on.
- 4.
This is by the way represented in the morphology of the English preposition, with+out.
- 5.
For many speakers a reflexive is required here: Magda se casou com o professor, o leite se misturou com a água. This has no relevance for the exposition.
- 6.
Frame elements in Framenet are normally more elaborate than usual semantic roles. This agrees with the chiefly cognitive (not exclusively linguistic) orientation of the project.
- 7.
This is basically recognized, in a way, in the Framenet entry for Cause_to_amalgamate (corresponding to the verb mix): the description refers to “an Agent joining Parts”; and it is also stated that Part 1 “requires Part 2,” and vice versa. ADESSE also recognizes the identity of thematic relations: for mezclar “mix,” it has entidad1 and entidad2, which represent the same thematic role; numbering has to do with the topic status of one of them (José M. García-Miguel, p.c.).
- 8.
Cf. Talmy’s (2000: 24) observation that “grammatical forms are semantically constrained while lexical forms basically are not [...] the basic function of grammatical forms is to structure conception while that of lexical forms is to provide conceptual content.” The same applies to grammatical and lexical thematic relations.
- 9.
Not only this schema: it also evokes MAGDA, TEACHER, and so on. The schema evoked by the verb performs a central role—something already found by traditional grammarians, when they state that the verb is the central element, or the “soul” of the sentence.
- 10.
Framenet has ARRIVING for this notion, but “come close” is clearly distinct from “arriving”: only the latter is telic, for one thing.
- 11.
More adequately, Levin (1993) speaks of “reciprocal alternations,” rather than “reciprocal verbs.”
- 12.
This section follows a suggestion by Polyana Plais (p.c.).
- 13.
Defined in Framenet as “Item 1 and Item 2 are compatible with each other if they can exist or function together in some context without problem, conflict or other undesirable situation.”
- 14.
In Portuguese at least, we can also say você não combina com esse tom de cabelo “you do not go well with this hair color”; as for English, I am not sure.
- 15.
This is the assignment requirement, seen in Sect. 11.4.
- 16.
Perhaps ∗she is being Maria conveys a feeling of unacceptability similar to the one the Portuguese speaker experiences with [59].
- 17.
Li and Thompson (1976) suggest that one criterion for language typology can be topic- or subject-prominence. If so, Brazilian Portuguese is somewhere in between.
- 18.
Desse is an agglutination of the preposition de “from” plus esse “this.”
- 19.
In this particular case the English sentence is parallel to the Portuguese: my car is the Possessor, a tire is the Possessed Thing (besides being the Patient).
- 20.
Examples marked “EP” are taken from Pontes (1987). Pontes’s examples are all drawn from observed utterances.
- 21.
Naquela is an agglutination of em “in” plus aquela “that.”
- 22.
In written Portuguese meus óculos (plural); in the Brazilian spoken language, óculos is generally used as a singular.
- 23.
On pairing of thematic relations see Perini 2015, 10.1.
- 24.
Na is the agglutination of the preposition em plus the feminine article a.
- 25.
- 26.
I disregard an apparently similar construction, instanced by deu / bateu meia noite “it struck midnight,” which I suspect refers primarily to the noise of a clock: note that one can say bateu meia noite às duas horas “it struck midnight at two.” In any case, this omission is not crucial here.
- 27.
Framenet: “An Experiencer has a greater desire to participate in some Event, as against another [...] event which exhibits a specific Contrast with the Event” (entry PREFERENCE).
- 28.
Or, worse, that coffee prefers tea to Elsa.
- 29.
This analysis is the only one found in Busse (1994: 386), and also in ADESSE, entry tener.
- 30.
And in any case a dog being possession is a much more plausible situation than a dog owning something—since the schema for OWNER, as seen, includes a “possessed thing,” which can be filled in by the schema DOG, a creature we are accostumed to see as being frequently owned.
- 31.
More rigorously, labeled in a way that allows recognition as an elaboration of Agent. But let us keep things simple by calling this variable Agent.
- 32.
Framenet includes this in the more schematic notion MANIPULATION, but here we may keep the more elaborate one.
- 33.
Framenet: EXPERIENCER_FOCUSED_EMOTION, with variables Experiencer and Content. ADESSE: GUSTAR, variables Experienciador (Experiencer) and Estímulo (Stimulus).
- 34.
This may be the result of a prototype rule, still to be researched. Note that the Agent prototype rule does not apply, because neither of the variables can be identified as an elaboration of Agent.
- 35.
No = em + definite article o.
- 36.
Of course, it may be that features of Universal Grammar (UG) fill in the gaps, so that only thematic information is necessary. I remain skeptical about this possibility, until such universal features are found and duly supported by empirical data.
- 37.
Described in Framenet as “a Perpetrator takes Goods from a Victim or a Source”; ADESSE has as participants Poseedor-final (“final possessor”), Posesión (“possession”) and Poseedor-inicial (“initial possessor”).
- 38.
The same in English, but with a different verb, rob instead of steal.
- 39.
Pairs active/passive are an additional counterexample, since they show the same constituents, with the same roles, in different syntactic functions.
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Perini, M.A. (2019). Case Studies. In: Thematic Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28538-8_13
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