ISSN: 1139-8736
Depósito Legal: B-48039-2000 |
5.1.1.2.1. The Localist Approach
Gruber, whose influential 1965 dissertation was the origin of all subsequent research on semantic roles, tried to provide a structured view of events to overcome the shortcomings of an unstructured list of semantic roles. He did so in terms of an explicit localist approach to the representation of events. Nevertheless, it was Jackendoff (1972, 1976, 1983, and 1990) who formalized and developed this approach. Other localist views of event structure are Anderson’s (1971) and Van Voorst (1993), with precursors in the work about the localist foundation of case by Hjelmslev (1935) and Jakobson (1936).
The basic tenet of the localist view is that motion and spatial events are central for the conceptualization and construal of all other events. Typically, two types of events are considered: motion and location events. Each has its own set of participants. In the case of location events they are the located entity and the location. In the case of motion events, the participants are the moving entity and the path it follows. The moving or located entity is referred to as the Theme. Jackendoff uses the predicates GO, BE and STAY as primitives.
Jackendoff’s (1983: 188) Thematic Relations Hypothesis (TRH) articulates the central idea behind the localist approach to event structure representation:
(5.26) Thematic Relations Hypothesis:In any semantic field of events and states, the principal event, state, path and place functions are a subset of those used for the analysis of spatial motion and location.Fields differ in only 3 possible ways:-what sorts of entities may appear as theme.-what sorts of entities may appear as reference objects (i.e.,locations).-what kind of relation assumes the role played by location in the field of spatial expressions.
(5.27) a. John kept the car in the garage.
b. John kept the book
c. John kept Andy happy.
(5.28) [CAUSE (x, (STAY y,z))]
ISSN: 1139-8736
Depósito Legal: B-48039-2000 |