Gropen J, Pinker S, Hollander M, Goldberg R
Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Cognition. 1991 Dec;41(1-3):153-95. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(91)90035-3.
How do speakers predict the syntax of a verb from its meaning? Traditional theories posit that syntactically relevant information about semantic arguments consists of a list of thematic roles like "agent", "theme", and "goal", which are linked onto a hierarchy of grammatical positions like subject, object and oblique object. For verbs involving motion, the entity caused to move is defined as the "theme" or "patient" and linked to the object. However, this fails for many common verbs, as in fill water into the glass and cover a sheet onto the bed. In more recent theories verbs' meanings are multidimensional structures in which the motions, changes, and other events can be represented in separate but connected substructures; linking rules are sensitive to the position of an argument in a particular configuration. The verb's object would be linked not to the moving entity but to the argument specified as "affected" or caused to change as the main event in the verb's meaning. The change can either be one of location, resulting from motion in a particular manner, or of state, resulting from accommodating or reacting to a substance. For example, pour specifies how a substance moves (downward in a stream), so its substance argument is the object (pour the water/glass); fill specifies how a container changes (from not full to full), so its stationary container argument is the object (fill the glass/water). The newer theory was tested in three experiments. Children aged 3;4-9;4 and adults were taught made-up verbs, presented in a neutral syntactic context (this is mooping), referring to a transfer of items to a surface or container. Subjects were tested on their willingness to encode the moving items or the surface as the verb's object. For verbs where the items moved in a particular manner (e.g., zig-zagging), people were more likely to express the moving items as the object; for verbs where the surface changed state (e.g., shape, color, or fullness), people were more likely to express the surface as the object. This confirms that speakers are not confined to labeling moving entities as "themes" or "patients" and linking them to the grammatical object; when a stationary entity undergoes a state change as the result of a motion, it can be represented as the main affected argument and thereby linked to the grammatical object instead.
说话者如何从动词的意义预测其句法？传统理论认为，关于语义论元的句法相关信息由一系列主题角色组成，如“施事”“主题”和“目标”，这些角色与主语、宾语和间接宾语等语法位置层次结构相联系。对于涉及移动的动词，被致使移动的实体被定义为“主题”或“受事”并与宾语相联系。然而，这一观点在许多常见动词上并不适用，比如“把水倒进杯子里”和“在床上铺上床单”。在更新的理论中，动词的意义是多维结构，其中的移动、变化及其他事件可以在各自独立但相互关联的子结构中得到表征；连接规则对论元在特定结构中的位置敏感。动词的宾语将不与移动的实体相联系，而是与在动词意义中被指定为“受影响的”或被致使发生变化的论元相联系。这种变化既可以是位置的变化，由以特定方式的移动导致，也可以是状态的变化，由对某种物质的容纳或反应导致。例如，“pour”（倒）指定了一种物质如何移动（呈一股水流向下），所以它的物质论元是宾语（pour the water/glass，倒水/倒杯子）；“fill”（装满）指定了容器如何变化（从不满到满），所以它的静止容器论元是宾语（fill the glass/water，装满杯子/水）。这一更新的理论在三个实验中得到了验证。对年龄在3岁4个月至9岁4个月的儿童和成年人教授一些编造的动词，这些动词出现在中性句法语境中（这是mooping），表示将物品转移到一个表面或容器上。测试受试者将移动的物品还是表面编码为动词宾语的意愿。对于物品以特定方式移动的动词（例如呈之字形移动），人们更倾向于将移动的物品表达为宾语；对于表面发生状态变化的动词（例如形状、颜色或满度），人们更倾向于将表面表达为宾语。这证实了说话者并不局限于将移动的实体标记为“主题”或“受事”并将它们与语法宾语相联系；当一个静止的实体由于一次移动而经历状态变化时，它可以被表征为主要的受影响论元，从而与语法宾语相联系。
