31.Semantic roles. Minimization of semantic roles

A semantic role is the underlying relationship that a participant has with the

main verb in a clause. It is also known as semantic case, thematic role, theta role

(generative grammar), and deep case (case grammar). Semantic role is the actual

role a participant plays in some real or imagined situation, apart from the linguistic

encoding of those situations. If, in some real or imagined situation, someone

named John purposely hits someone named Bill, then John is the agent and Bill is

the patient of the hitting event. Therefore, the semantic role of Bill is the same

(patient) in both of the following sentences:

John hit Bill. Bill was hit by John.

A set of semantic roles and an action expressed by a verb constitute a

linguistic semantic model of an extralinguistic situation and are called semantic

configuration. The set of semantic roles preset by the lexico-semantic peculiarities

of the verb makes us the role structure of the verb. The semantic configuration is

the semantic minimum of the sentence. The role structure of an actual sentence

may include roles that are not part of the semantic minimum. e.g. to floor – to bring down to the floor (locative)

He floored the intruder with one blow. - * He floored the intruder to the

floor with one blow.

to bag – to put into a bag (locative)

to nose – to push with the nose (instrument)

to sugar – to saturate with sugar (material/substance)

to catholicize – to turn to Catholicism (factitive)

to feed – to supply food (patient)

to winter – to stay during the winter (temporative)

32. Actual division of the sentence.

The actual division of the sentence, called also the "functional sentence

perspective", exposes the informative perspective of the sentence showing what

immediate semantic contribution the sentence parts make to the total information

conveyed by the sentence. The sentence can be divided into two sections – theme

and rheme.

The theme is the part of the proposition that is being talked about

(predicated). The rheme expresses the basic informative part of the communication,

emphasizing its contextually relevant centre

33. Indirect meaning of the utterance: presupposition (and its types), implication and reference

When there is a mismatch between the expressed meaning and the implied

meaning we deal with indirectness. Indirectness is a universal phenomenon: it

occurs in all natural languages.

There can be three types of indirect meanings conveyed by a sentence:

presupposition, implication and reference.

Presupposition is defined as an indirect proposition that can be inferred

from the sentence.

e.g. John knows that Mary got married. John does not know that Mary got

married.

presupposition: Mary got married.

Do you want to do it again?

presupposition: You have done it already, at least once.

My wife is pregnant.

presupposition: The speaker has a wife.

Presupposition as a linguistic phenomenon is characterized by two

features, that is,

1) it can be inferred from the sentence;

2) it does not depend on negation or questioning

Presupposition is not the only type of indirect sentence meaning. Consider

the following example:

e.g. She somehow contrived to pass the exam.

The implied meaning of the sentence is that she passed the exam. However,

it differs from presupposition as it is negation-sensitive. An indirect proposition

inferred from the original utterance and dependent on negation is called