Verb And Argument English Language Essay

Verb And Argument English Language Essay Abstract: This paper examines thematic/argument structure of the predicate used in the sentences, the sentences were constructed by a researcher on a random basis, and the focus of the study was on the thematic structure and theta role of verbs used in this sentences, more specifically the thematic /argument structure of the verbs used in main clauses of the report. Objectives of the study: Indentifying the thematic structure of the verbs used in this sentences Identifying the argument structure(theta role) of the predicate in this sentences Questions of the study: What are the thematic structure of the verbs used in this sentences What are theta roles of these arguments? Scope of the study: This study aims to identify thematic/argument structure of the predicates used in the following sentences: Mary plants her flowers in the garden by the lake The professor of syntax told a story to his students The boy laughed in the classroom They cut it with a knife The old building of the congress collapsed at 02:00 PM Your head master is buying you a laptop in your birthday The doctor came yesterday The ball fell down The focus of the analysis will be on thematic/argument structure of verbs used in these sentences. Literature review: Verb and argument: Mark Newson (2006) stated that, to explain and understand the difference between lexical and functional categories, we need to know and introduce concepts related with how the part of the sentence related to each other to complete the meaning of that sentence the following example explains that the Professor teaches the students here in this sentence there is an event which can be described as (teaching), and this event is involving two individuals or participants, the professor and the students, and this participants related in a particular way, so the professor is the one doing the teaching and the students are the one getting taught. Thus the verb describes the character of event and both the professor and the students refer to the elements participated in this event, so the word functions as the verb is so called predicate whereas the one functions as nouns is so called argument, thus what participants (arguments) can be involved in the sentence or event is determined by the meaning of a particular sentence like take for example the following examples: Stephen is sleeping John gives Mary some flowers In these sentence Stephen is only one participant in the event of sleeping, so one argument, but in the second sentence consist three participants which are John, Mary and some flowers, thus three arguments, it clear that from the examples verb like sleep takes only one argument whereas verb like give takes at least three arguments to complete its meaning. Bas Aerts (2001) posited that English sentences can be described in two ways, functionally and formally, for example the sentence the boy eats banana consist of subject which is the boy and predicator (verb) which is eats and direct object which is a banana, so the subject and direct object are filled by noun phrases whereas the predicator is filled by a verb, so the verb eats cannot form a sentence by itself, but it needs other elements to construct a meaningful sentence, as it clear that from above sentence that eat needs who was done the act of eating something and was being eaten, thus the one who does the of eating and something that was being eaten are so called arguments or participants. Leonad H. Babby (2009) explained that, one of the most important theories of generative syntax is dealing with the notion that syntax is a projection of the lexicon, mainly to propose explicit theories of the construction between the semantics and morphosytactic structure, he added that it is correct if by lexicon we understand predicate argument structure so the sentences main syntactic structure (vP) is immediately projection of verb (v) argument structure, or the argument structure of any sentence based on grammatical (syntactic) relation is determined by the verb (v). Thete-roles David Adger (2002) stated that the word like teach does not express a complete thought on its own, minimally the word teach expresses a relationship between objects, which one teaches other, in comparison with the word like sleep which needs only one object, the object that sleeps, teach and sleep in contrast with word like gives, which involves three objects, someone gives something to someone, these words express concepts which some of these concepts are necessary to human computational system that related to the meaning of the words, so a predicate can be used in characterization of a situation, but this predicate needs other linguistics elements to complete the thought as explained above with teach, sleep and give. When a predicate involves one other element to complete the thought then a predicate is one-place predicate like in sleep, and when it needs two or three, then a predicate is two-place or three-place predicate. By going back to the words sleep, teach and give, we can combine these verbs with other participants to construct the following sentences: John sleeps Ali is teaching the girl Mary gives Nina a pen In the first sentence the predicate is combined with the theme which is one-place predicate, in the second one the predicate combined with agent and benefactive which is two-place predicate, and for the last one the predicate is combined with source, benefactive and theme which is three-place predicate, Thus these properties are linguistically so called thematic roles or theta roles which related to the lexicon semantics, so if someone talks about the number of thematic roles that a predicate assigns, he refers to theta roles and each theta roles assigns only one role in the sentence. Martin Haiden (2005) added that according to Chomsky (1981) each argument assigns only one theta role, and each theta role assigns only one argument. List of theta roles Radford (2009) listed the theta roles as: Theme: shows the effect of someones action e.g. the ball fell down Agent: shows someone does the action e.g. Kim is swimming Experience: shows the entity experiencing the psychological state e.g. they love Mary Locative: shows the place which something situated or takes place e.g. he rolled the ball down the hill Goal: shows the distinction of some other entity e.g. the student lives in KL Source: which shows the entity from which something moves e.g. Mona came from London Instrument: shows the instrument used to do some action e.g. Ahmed opened the door with key. Data analysis This involved indentifying the thematic/argument structure of the predicates used in the sentences The first procedure in analyzing the data involved indentifying the thematic structure of the predicates in this sentences The next step is identifying the theta roles of the predicate arguments. Identification of argument structure: The arguments of the verb are those phrases which complete the meaning of verb. Identification of thematic structure: Thematic structure (theta-role) is the role in which the argument of the verb played. Findings: According to the analysis, verbs differ in the they employ the argument and thematic structure, each verb needs only a limited number of argument, thereby English verbs can be classified according to the argument and thematic structure to: first: accusative verb, which is verb with tow arguments e.g. the verb plant and buy, the second: ditransitive verb, which is a verb with three arguments e.g. the verb told, the third type of the verb is unergative which is verb with one argument and this argument must assign the role of agent, the fourth type is unaccusative which is the verb with one argument and this argument must assign the role as theme thus can differ it from unergative, and the last type is instrument verb which is the verb with instrument as one of its arguments, this classification is based on the data only, more specifically these types are only the types used in this study.

Aggressive Parents, Aggressive Children Essay

Growing up, kids have a lot of influences in their life; from television to peers children will always absorb something. With this being said the biggest influence on a child would have to be the people there with the most- their family. Because this is unarguably true, it would then be fair to then assume that parental/ sibling aggression could have a big impact on future relationships caused by development. What is aggression one may ask? Aggression is a hostile, injurious, destructive behaviour or outlook especially when caused by frustration. Human development would be everything that happened from the moment a child thinks for the first time, then. Sigmund Freud was one psychologist who theorizes that those who have experienced trauma from aggression in the home will often use defense mechanisms to disregard unwanted emotions. This leaves a negative effect on the unconscious mind and makes a person act irrationally. By comparing cultures and examining how nature vs. urture, the theme of pies and how the ecological theory all come into play when dealing with the way children treat relationships, it is hoped that one will see that aggression in the home will indeed lead to negative relationships for the child’s near future. One key question many would ask and not for only this topic (but many on the mind in general), would be are these actions and thoughts merely influenced by parents, or are they born with th e â€Å"defect† and therefore forced to live with it. The argument of nature vs. nurture is a question that has baffled even the most renowned of psychologists. Both sides have strong supporting arguments therefore coming up with an end answer would be impossible for one to do. In Daena’s article, entitled â€Å"Is Aggressive Behaviour Biologically or Environmentally Based? † Daena proposes that aggression is learned. Supporting herself by linking aggression with Skinner’s rat, continuing by saying aggression is caused by positive reinforcement (reward). By calming a kid down with a toy, the child would have received the â€Å"reward†, now the child understands if he does this, then another â€Å"reward† should come. One way this could be seen in a household could be when a father cusses after he hurts himself. The child could subconsciously perceive that the pain and expression on the father going away shortly after was his reward, therefore the child takes on the habit. This does put some weight on the nurture side because the reward is what causes any outcome. But, Professor Richard Tremblay of the University of Montreal says that â€Å"We do not need to learn to aggress, but to not aggress. In this indirect argument with the other article mentioned Tremblay suggests that children are aggressive by nature and learn how to control their aggression at around 4 years old. When linking nature or nurture to aggression one must understand that they really can’t choose an option and be satisfied with their decision. â€Å"PIES† stands for the four kinds of development; physical, intellectual, emotional, social. When children witness aggression at home almost every kind of development a re interrupted. Physical development includes growth of bone muscles, motor skills and senses. Intellectual development includes the maturation of mental process, such as learning, imagination, memory and perception. When a child is used to seeing aggression exhibited by their parents, they will associate that violence will many things they see on a daily basis. For example the first time the child sees adults mating on television, etc. Their first instinct would usually be to believe that the couple is actually fighting. This shows that what they sense would be different from what’s actually happening therefore proving a negative outcome. Emotional development includes the maturation and evolution of emotions, social skills, identity, and morals. If a child grows up witnessing spousal abuse from an early age, and isn’t explained that it’s bad, then would that child not believe that this action is perfectly fine? Seeing the father only do this when he’s angry, the child could perceive that beating somebody is an output of anger for them as well. Social development includes the evolution of knowledge of how people interact, play, share, take turns, or talk socially. From an early stage if the child sees fighting, it is then safe to assume that their ‘evolution of knowledge based on how people interact’ will be evolving off of the witnessed negative action seen in the first place (spousal abuse, swearing parents, etc. ). A child’s development could be positive or negative based solely on the overall environment the child is living in. One may be lead to believe that aggression is taught by others, and then mirrored by the children whom the aggression will eventually attach itself too. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory argues that ‘development’ is influenced by five environmental systems. The theory identifies five environmental systems. The five environmental systems are: Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystem, Macrosystem, and Chronosystem. The microsystem is the child’s immediate surroundings i. e. family, neighborhood and friends. This theory suggests that if the child lives in a damaged microsystem, the child’s development could also be damaged. The mesosystem is the connection seen between immediate environments i. e. parents to peers. This directly relates to the topic showing that if a child witness’s abuse, there’s a good chance they will mirror it with their peers. Children need people in order to become human†¦. It is primarily through observing, playing, and working with others both older and younger than he that a child discovers both what he can do and who he can become. †-Urie Bronfenbrenner (quotes. dictionary. com). This quote can be fitted to the topic of aggression in children because she basically explains that wi thout other humans, we would have no route for our personality/identity to take. The Macrosystem describes the culture of the child, anywhere from physical geographic, to wealth in the child’s area. Urie suggests that those that are living in lower class are more likely to commit crime. It must also be understood that children influenced by their environment is not conclusive. As children in some African regions see violence every day but learned to adapt with it as opposed to keeping it bottled up in their head. The final system is the Chronosystem. This monitors patterns of environmental events over time. Non-normative events may have a negative psychological effect, e. g. a recent divorce or death in the family. The change is too drastic for the child to cope with. With witnessed aggression, as it starts to become the normal in the child’s life, the child may seek to emulate it later on when the ‘normal’ aggression is missing. Urie Bronfenbenners theory does weigh in favor of the child learning the aggression because it all seems to tie into the child feeling a sense of normal. Based on the theory, children will emulate what they see, because if they didn’t emulate anything, they would have no guidance in their life. Their identity would be 100% their own. Therefore if aggression is their guide, aggression will be what children emulate.

The Distribution of Wealth - 1542 Words

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The portion of American wealth owned by the 1% richest Americans rose from 35% to 37.2% while that owned by the 20% richest Americans increased from 85% to 87.8%. The global financial crisis led to a drop of 36% in the middle class wealth but only a decrease of 11% for the top 1% richest people in the United States. This further widened the gap between the two groups. At the start of the current decade, about 51% of the American population was in the middle class. This was a 10% drop in the middle class population from that of the previous 40 years. Compared to a number of developedShow MoreRelatedThe Distribution of Wealth892 Words   |  4 PagesEveryone has his or her own ideas of how wealth should be distributed properly. Some people believe wealth should be left to family, left for public services, or become the property of others. Others believe that people should not have excess wealth, resulting in non-existent class distinctions. 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Concept Of Corporate Social Responsibility - 1723 Words

Social responsibility is an idea that has been of concern to mankind for many years. Over the last two decades, however, it has become of increasing concern to the business world. This has resulted in growing interaction between governments, businesses and society as a whole. In the past, businesses primarily concerned themselves with the economic results of their decisions. â€Å"Today, however, businesses must also reflect on the legal, ethical, moral and social consequences of their decisions† (Anderson 15). This paper will discuss the concept of corporate social responsibility. It will give the definition of the phrase, and identify some of the global factors that necessitate corporate social responsibility. It will discuss the importance of corporations setting up corporate social responsibility projects, and the impact these have on society. Social corporate responsibility and the maintenance of high ethical standards is not an option but an obligation for all business. Corporate social responsibility is no longer defined by how much money a company contributes to charity, but by its overall involvement in activities that improve the quality of people’s lives. Corporate Responsibility has come up as a significant subject matter in the international business community and is progressively becoming a mainstream activity. There is mounting recognition of the momentous effect the activities of the private sector have on the workforce, clientele, the society, the environment,Show MoreRelatedConcept Of Corporate Social Responsibility839 Words   |  4 Pagesand concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been a much deliberated and controversial one. So aged has been this deliberation that Votaw and Sethi (1973) depicted it as a brilliant term; which rightfully means something, but not always the same thing to everybody. 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