English grammar - Roger Berry 2012
Lynn M. Berk
D8 Semantic roles of the subject
Section D Extension
Lynn M. Berk (1999) reprinted from one section of Chapter One of English Syntax: from Word to Discourse, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 14-23.
In this reading Berk identifies a number of different ’meanings’ for the subject of clauses. These go beyond the traditional idea of the subject as the agent or doer of an action (see also the reading by Michael Halliday in D11).
Berk uses one unfamiliar term, ’predicate’, to refer to anything in a clause after the subject (i.e. verb plus objects and/or predicatives). In this approach the clause is always divided into two parts, the subject and predicate, before the latter is further divided. Some grammatical phenomena are easier to explain on this basis, e.g. the use of certain proforms — see B11).
Berk also discusses empty (dummy) ’it’ and cataphoric (anticipatory) ’it’ as subjects; these are dealt with in A11 and B11.
It is of course the semantic component of the subject that is most salient to speakers. Even small children intuitively recognise some sort of division between a ’doer’ and an ’action.’ In Jack yelled, Bonnie studied all night, and The child put the candy in her pocket, Jack, Bonnie, and the child are all ’doers’ engaging in some activity. This division between the doer and the action is often what people point to when they distinguish between the subject and the predicate. But to define the subject as a doer and the predicate as an action would be misleading. In the following sentences, the subject is in no way doing anything - Susan is tall; The wall looked dirty; My mother was mugged last night. If the subject is not necessarily a doer, what is it?
Subjects play a number of different semantic roles in English and ’doer of the action’ is only one of them. (These roles are also called thematic or theta roles in some syntactic models.) I’ve identified below some of the most common semantic roles played by subjects in English sentences. While this list is not exhaustive, it will give you a good sense of the semantic variety.
Agent Subjects
The agent subject is the classic doer of the action. An agent subject is an animate being that acts deliberately, with intent. Most speakers consider the agent the most typical subject. If you ask someone to construct a sentence out of thin air, it is likely that s/he will utter one with an agent subject. All of the agentive subjects below are engaging in wilful, deliberate action:
(a)
Catherine’s boss fired her.
Fred threw the frisbee.
Joan built a birdhouse.
My sisters washed the car.
The dog tore up the newspaper.
The mare devoured her oats.
(b)
The little boy yelled.
Those kids are whispering.
My niece smiled.
Mom sat down.
The choir sang.
The bulldog growled.
The agents in column (a) are acting on someone or something, i.e., the direct object, while the agents in column (b) are not acting on anyone or anything else. In other words, an agent subject can occur with or without a direct object. (Direct objects will be discussed shortly.)
Whether or not amoebas, slugs, and other lower creatures actually have agency is probably a biological question and not a linguistic one. They certainly don’t do things deliberately but they do engage in some of the same activities that higher creatures do - crawling, eating, swimming, etc. It is probably reasonable to treat them as agents even though they are acting instinctively rather than deliberately.
Of course we often anthropomorphise machines and treat them as agents, even though they are technically inanimate - The ATM machine refuses to return my card; My computer ate my term paper; The engine threw a rod.
Causer Subjects
A causer is either an animate being who acts without volition or an inanimate entity. We distinguish causers from agents because the semantics of the two roles are quite different. A sentence like Rob tripped Roy is potentially ambiguous; if Rob tripped Roy just to see Roy fall, Rob is an agent but if Rob tripped Roy accidentally, then Rob is a causer.
All the sentences below contain animate causer subjects.
Mavis inadvertently touched the wet paint.
Benjamin accidently cut his finger.
Susanna bumped her head.
Sometimes animate causers inadvertently affect another person’s psychological state.
The clown (accidentally) frightened my daughter.
Betsy hurt Rene’s feelings inadvertently.
Michael Jordan amazes me.
Nan depresses her mother.
Michael Jordan certainly doesn’t know that he amazes me, but he has that effect, nevertheless. Nan may depress her mother because her mother is worried about her lifestyle, in which case Nan might be totally unaware of the effect she is having.
It’s not always easy to tell whether an animate subject is an agent or a causer. Out of context, we don’t know whether the following subjects are acting deliberately or not.
Butch disgusts everyone.
The child amused the adults.
Professor Smith intimidates her students.
Of course inanimate entities lack intention or volition by their very nature. Causers can be things like rocks, forces like tornadoes, or abstract qualities like love.
Hail cracked our windshield.
Oil stained the carpet.
A hurricane damaged the village.
The wind broke the window.
The revolution terrified the king.
Determination saved the family.
Hate destroyed her.
Unlike agents, causers always act on something or somebody else; in other words, they are always followed by a direct object.
Instrument Subjects
An instrument subject, as the label implies, is an inanimate entity which acts on someone or something else because it is being used as an instrument. In a sentence like The key opened the safe, we can assume that some unnamed agent is wielding the key because keys don’t operate by themselves; in The tweezers removed the splinter, an unspecified agent is using the tweezers.
Sometimes an instrument subject allows a speaker to avoid taking responsibility. A child might say ’My ball broke your window’ rather than ’I broke your window
with my ball.’ Here the ball is the instrument used by the child in the breaking of the window. On the other hand, in The hail broke your window, the hail is clearly a causer, not an instrument.
Instrument subjects are fairly unusual in English. We most often find instruments in (adverbial) prepositional phrases - Meredith opened the safe with a key; The nurse removed the splinter with the tweezers; I broke the window with my ball. I will discuss these constructions at some length in Chapter 4.
Experiencer Subjects
Experiencer subjects are always animate, usually human. An experiencer experiences a sensory perception or a psychological state. In other words, the experiencer is not doing anything but is instead experiencing something through the senses or the mental faculties. The verbs that co-occur with experiencer subjects relate to consciousness; they are verbs that reflect ’private’ internal states.
Each of our five senses allows for an agent subject and an experiencer subject. When an agent engages in a sensory activity, the agent actively employs the sense in question. An experiencer, however, has a sensory experience that was unsought. An agent looks at or listens to something on purpose. An experiencer sees because an event passes before the eyes and hears because a sound occurs within earshot. When Mary tastes the sauce, she does so by putting her spoon in the bowl and then to her lips. But when Mary tastes mold on the bread, her taste buds simply register a sensation; she has taken no direct action to engage that sense.
A sentence like Gene smelled the perfume is ambiguous out of context.
As you can see, sometimes the semantic difference between an experiencer subject and an agent subject is reflected in the verb and sometimes it’s not. In the case of look at versus see and listen to versus hear, this semantic difference is lexicalised; in other words, the difference in meaning is signaled by different words. In the case of agentive smell and experiencer smell, the semantic difference is not lexicalised; the verbs take the same form.
Mental state verbs, more often called psych-verbs, also take experiencer subjects. These subjects are not really engaging in action. Normally, when an agent acts, the direct object is directly affected by that action. But none of the experiencer subjects below has a direct effect upon the direct object.
Joan wants a raise.
Brad thinks about food constantly.
Mary can’t tolerate liver.
Rich doesn’t believe in love.
She admires her mother.
Susan loves stamp collecting.
Ted adores Sally.
I believe them.
Eric is dreaming.
Sheila trusts her son.
The fact that Ted adores Sally and that Sheila trusts her son might theoretically affect both Sally and the son in many ways, but the sentences above are silent on that issue. In fact, Sally may not even know that Ted exists and Sheila’s son may be totally unaware of her feelings.
Later we will examine experiencers that are functioning as direct objects and prepositional phrases.
Patient Subjects (and Patient Direct Objects)
I’ll approach the issue of patient subjects indirectly, by first previewing another category - the direct object. It is probably apparent to you that a noun phrase which follows a verb is often affected by the action of the verb. A noun phrase which follows the verb and is affected by the action of that verb is typically a direct object. Direct objects are structures inside predicates.
In Jack dropped the vase, Keisha opened the door, and The insects killed the plants, the vase, the plants, and the door are the affected parties; they are also direct objects. In each of these sentences, an agent or causer subject has caused something to happen to the direct object. An event can also be expressed by eliminating the agent/causer and making the affected party the subject of the sentence. In The vase fell, the vase is not doing anything but rather is being acted upon by another unnamed force - somebody dropped it, the wind knocked it over, somebody kicked the table it was sitting on, etc. In The plants died, something killed the plants - insects, frost, the lawn mower, old age. In The door opened, someone or something caused this to happen - Keisha, the wind, a ghost. The traditional semantic label for an affected subject or an affected direct object is patient. (This label derives from the adjective patient which historically described one who ’bears or endures.’) A patient is never volitional; a patient never exercises control; a patient is an entity to which things happen. You will find that most patient subjects co-occur with verbs that describe a change of state - The water boiled; The chair broke; The water heater exploded; Rosa fell; The mirror shattered.
In the examples below, you will find that none of the sentences with patient subjects contain direct objects.
Semantically, a sentence like Lance jumped or The woman rolled down the hill is ambiguous out of context. Lance may be an agent subject who deliberately jumps or a patient subject who jumps involuntarily because something startles him. Similarly, The woman rolled down the hill can be interpreted as having an agent subject (she rolled on purpose) or a patient subject (something tripped her and she rolled). Usually when a sentence contains an animate subject which acts involuntarily, the agent/ instrument can be found elsewhere in the discourse, e.g., Lance jumped because someone set off a firecracker.
There can be only one patient in a simple sentence and if there is a direct object, it, not the subject, will carry that semantic role. In Susan tripped the professor, Susan must be an agent or a causer. Patient subjects occur only in intransitive or passive constructions. (Intransitivity will be explained shortly and the passive will be explained in Chapter 3.) In the sentence Susan tripped there is no direct object; Susan is clearly the affected party and thus a patient.
In his mystery novel The Little Sister, Raymond Chandler (1971) uses a series of patient subjects to underscore the fact that the hero has been knocked to the floor and cannot see his assailant, although he can hear the results of her activities. ’The door opened. A key rattled. The door closed. The key turned’ (p. 54).
Described and Located Subjects
Some subjects are simply being characterised or described by the information in the predicate. These subjects always co-occur with copulas, verbs that have little independent meaning but relate the information in the predicate back to the subject. (Copulas will be discussed in detail later.)
Other subjects are simply located in space. In the following sentences the location is double underlined.
Samson is in his doghouse
The pots are in the bottom cupboard
Tomi is on the porch
The Centrust Building stands on Miami Avenue.
Some Other Semantic Roles
Subjects play other semantic roles in the sentence and linguists don’t always agree on how far to go in categorising these. For example, some of the empty it subjects above can also be paraphrased with subjects that express place.
Seattle is foggy.
Alaska is cold.
This bar is smoky.
These are usually called locative subjects because they simply name a location. (Don’t confuse locative subjects with located subjects.)
Subjects that express time are sometimes categorised semantically as temporal subjects.
Wednesday is the baby’s birthday.
Tomorrow is our anniversary.
Weekends are lonely.
Subjects like these have an adverbial quality and can in fact be paraphrased with adverb constructions - It is rainy in Seattle; The baby’s birthday is on Wednesday. (We will discuss adverbs in Chapter 4.) Some grammarians (e.g., Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik, 1972, p. 42) also establish an event category for subjects - The party is at 9pm; The concert is over.
It isn’t clear just how far we should go in creating semantic categories for subjects or any other grammatical construction. Meaning is a continuum and we could go on forever creating ever finer semantic distinctions, but such an exercise has limited utility. You will find that different grammarians sometimes employ different labels and grammarians don’t always agree on just what should be included in a given category, but the roles agent, instrument, experiencer, and patient are quite standard. The semantic categories discussed above can encompass a large number of English sentences and, as you will see later, most of these categories have important grammatical implications.
Questions, suggestions and issues to consider
1. a) Look at the verbs that are associated with described subjects. Do you notice anything about them? (See B8.)
b) Look at the verbs that are associated with patient subjects. Do you notice anything about them? (See C7.)
2. Where would you fit a subject such as the book in
The book talks about many topics
into Berk’s classification?
3. On page 237 Berk mentions the existence of direct objects (rather than subjects) in the role of experiencer. Can you think of some examples?