Submitted by: Reg.No met01103008

SEMANTIC ROLES IN A SHORT STORYAbstract:

This project reports on a study of semantic role in a short story. I investigated the effect of using semantic roles and relations; and proposed to identify the relevant headwords in a sentence . I discuss all semantic role and relation with examples.Definition

A semantic role is the underlying relationship that a participant has with the main verb in a clause.

Discussion

Semantic role is the actual role a participant plays in some real or imagined situation, apart from the linguistic encoding of those situations.

Example:

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.

In both of the above sentences, John has the semantic role of agent.

Agent

Agent is one who performs some actions. AGENT is a label representing the role of an agent.Joe played well and won the price.Here, Joe is the person who did playing.

In story agent is

Luz could hear them below on the balcony.

Luz sat on the bed.

Luz stayed on night duty for three months.

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The underline words have the role of agent.

There were only a few patients, and they all knew about it. They all liked Luz.

In the sentence “they all liked Luz” the agent is few patients as here “they” stand for few patients.

Cause

Cause is one that causes something or it is a reason for some happenings.Rain makes me happy.Here, rain causes happiness and so is the cause.

Similarly in the story look following sentences.

They were glad to let her.

In this sentence stay of her (Luz) is the cause of glad and so is the cause.

Luz would not come home until he had a good job.

Here, having no good job causes Luz would not come home, so it is cause.

Experiencer

One who experienced is experiencer. Or the entity that receives sensory or emotional inputJohan felt very painful when heard of the sudden demise of his friend.Here, Johan experienced the pain so he is the experiencer.

He felt sick about saying good-bye like that.

Here, he experienced the sick so he is the experiencer.

Beneficiary

The semantic role of the intended recipient who benefits from the happening denoted by the verb in the clause

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I prayed early in the morning for Susan.Here Susan is the beneficiary.

Manner

Tom behaved very gently even when he was insulted.Here gently should be labeled as manner.

Theme:

Undergoes the action but does not change its state (e.g., We believe in many gods. I have two children. I put the book on the table. He gave the gun to the police officer.)

Luz sat on the bed.

They all liked Luz.

Luz wrote him many letters.

They were all about the hospital.

The underline words are theme as they do not change their state.

Location:

Where the action occurs (e.g., Johnny and Linda played carelessly in the park.).

He went to America.

Luz went back to Pordonone to open a hospital.

Luz could hear them below on the balcony.

There were chimney swifts in the sky.

In the above examples underline words are locations.

Valency Zero:

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It is snowing.

This sentence has the verb snow and the subject is it, but it does not name ant thing. The sentence has a subject because English requires a subject, but this subject does not correspond to anything in the underlying proposition. We say that snow is zero argument verb. So it has zero valency.

In the short story there is no any sentence with zero vallency.

Valency One:

All intransitive verb has vallency one.

e.g. They felt.

they were married.

She was sorry.

The above sentences have intransitive verb, as they have no object, so they have valency one.

Valency Two:

Most of the verbs take a subject and an object, they are two argument predicates. So they have valency two.

e.g. Luz sat on the bed.

They all liked Luz.

Luz would not come home.

As these have two arguments so they have valency two.

Luz sat bed.

↓ ↓ ↓

Argument1 predicate argument2

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Semantic relations

In the narrow sense are semantic relations, relations between concepts or meanings.These are as,

Synonymy

It is the semantic relation that holds between two words that can (in a given context) express the same meanings.For example in the following sentences from the storyAfter a while it got darkIt was dim.“dark” and “dim” are the synonym.Similarly inhow terrible it was missing him at night.He felt sick about saying good-bye like that.“terrible” & “sick” are somehow synonym.

Hyponymy

Synonymy can actually be described as a special case of hyponymy, as we shall see. Hyponymy is a more recent term in semantics than synonymy – it refers to the sense relation that holds between classes and their members. So, spanner, screwdriver, hammer, drill are all members of the class, tool. In technical terms, spanner, screwdriver, drill, etc are all co-hyponyms and tool is the superordinate term.

Luz sat on the bed.

When they operated on him she prepared him for the operating table.

In these sentences “bed” & “table” are the members of furniture class.

Polysemy

The ambiguity of an individual word or phrase that can be used (in different contexts) to express two or more different meanings.

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Luz sat on the bed. She was cool and fresh in the hot night.

In his sentence hot night have several meanings.

Fifteen came in a bunch.

The word bunch is used for differently. It may be as bunch of grapes.

Antonyms

The semantic relation that holds between two words that can (in a given context) express opposite meanings.

She was cool and fresh in the hot night.

Before he went back to the front they went into the Duomo and prayed.

she expected, absolutely unexpectedly

it was only a boy and girl love.

These underline words are opposite to each other.

(a) Antonymy

Technically, antonomy is restricted to those words like hot/cold, big/small which are often gradable adjectives. The ‘opposites’ can be seen as occupying space at diametrically-opposite ends of a scale, thus big/small, huge/tiny.e.g.She was cool and fresh in the hot night.

(b) Complementarity

Complementarity applies to two-term sets of words where one excludes the other. Thus if you are married, it implies that you are not single; and if you are single, it implies you are not married. Other states fall into the general semantic field, but if you are divorced or separated you can argue that you are single once more. The same kind of relation holds for up and down.

e.g. . They were patients. Means they were not right.

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They all liked Luz. Means they did not hate Luz.

After the armistice they agreed he should go home to get a job so they might be married.

Means they were jobless.

He felt sick about saying good-bye like that.

Means he was not happy.

(c) Converseness

Relations of converseness are said to apply to words like buy/sell; give/receive; husband/wife. Again implications are used to clarify this relationship. If you buy something from me, then it implies that I sell something to you. If x is y’s husband, it implies that y is x’s wife. Like complementarity, converseness relates to two-term sets of words.

e.g. it was only a boy and girl love.

(d) Incompatibility

The most general type of ‘oppositeness’ is simply incompatibility. This is a little like complementarity but pertains to sets of words greater than two. Seasons of the year fall into a four-word set, although we tend to perceive summer/winter, spring/autumn as opposites. As numbers in the set increase (to twelve with months of the year) it is more difficult to assign a single opposite to each word. But we can say that a sentence like ‘It’s January’ implies that it isn’t February/March/April/etc. If it is one, then it is not one of a set of others.

e.g. The major did not marry her in the spring.

Living in the muddy, rainy town in the winter,

Spring which is opposite of Autumn and Winter that is opposite of Summer are incompatibility.

Conclusion: An extended definition for semantic relations is proposed, including restrictions on their domains and ranges as well as values for semantic primitives.

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Primitives indicate if a certain property holds between the arguments of a relation. An algebra for composing semantic primitives is defined, allowing to automatically determine the primitives values for the composition of any two relations.

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