LINGUIST List 5.1076

Sun 02 Oct 1994

Sum: John in "John weighs 200 pounds"

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Message 1: john weighs 200 pounds

Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 09:27:32 john weighs 200 pounds
From: <JORGE2vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: john weighs 200 pounds

What is John in John weighs 200 pounds? Summary

Original Query

"If John is an Agent in John opened the door, and John is an Experiencer in John saw the movie, what is John in John weighs 200 pounds."

Responses:

1. "Wallace Chafe, in Meaning and the structure of language (1970:157) cites the example "The book weighs a pound" with the comment "It would seem that weigh must be accompanied by a complement expressing a weight." In Chafe's system the subject of the verb weigh is called Patient, similar to Fillmore's Object case and Jackendoff's Theme case. "John weighs 200 pounds" has the same case frame as "The box weighs 200 pounds". This example is cited in Cook, Case Grammar Theory (1989) with the case frame Pat (Patient) + Comp (Complement), but the lexicon (1989:215) suggests the case frame Os, Os with a double expression of Object (Theme). The assignment of Object/Patient/Theme for the subject of weigh is not disputed. The object of weigh is controversial."

Prof.Walter A.Cook, Georgetown University.

2. "According to Jackendoff (1972: 44), the theta-role of "John" in the above sentence is theme. Jackendoff follows Gruber (1965, 1967a) in assuming the following definition for theme:Theme is defined as either an NP which undergoes physical motion, or as the NP whose location is being asserted (Jackendoff 1972: 29-30). The use of "John" in the above sentence falls under the latter definition. Jackendoff says that the above sentence corresponds with the following sentence:"John weighs in at 200 pounds." Hence, "John" is a theme by virtue of the fact that its location is being asserted, the location being 200 pounds on the scale. One final note is that elsewhere in the literature theme and patient are often used interchangably. However, Jackendoff (1987: 394-395) makes a distinction between these two theta-roles. He defines patient as the "object affected", and he reserves theme only to refer to NPs undergoing movement or whose location is being asserted.Hope this helps out."

Lizanne Kaiser lkaiserminerva.cis.yale.edu

3. "I suggest that _John_ in your sentence _John weighs 200 lb._ is a patient, which these days is more usually called theme. The _200 lb._ is an oblique of some sort (I hate to fudge on this one, but for various technical reasons, it is extremely difficult to distinguish the oblique roles -- I assume at least five -- on the basis of their syntactic behavior, and pure semantics can't cut it)."

Leo Connolly connollymsuvx1.memphis.edu

4. "Theme. 200 pounds is a locative."

Gary B. Palmer gbpnevada.edu

5. "My reasoning would make 'John' the theme. The reasoning is based Ss like:(1) This book is heavy (2) This book weighs 200 pounds. Book is being described in (1); hence, it is a theme. The book is also being described in (2); the only difference is the measurement of weight which 'weigh' assigns but not heavy."

dearmondsfu.ca

6. "I would say that the verb weigh as used in X weighs 200 lbs. designates X's location on a scale of possible weights. Thus, X is the entity whose location is at issue, i.e., what is commonly known as 'theme'."

P.M. Farrell, UC Davis pmfarrellucdavis.edu

7. "I'd say Patient. There may be a 3-way ambiguity of _John hit the wall_: (i) John, as conscious actor (Agent), purposely hit the wall (e.g., with his fist) (ii) John, as psychological experiencer (Experiencer), hit the wall (e.g., after being knocked against it) (iii) John, as acted-upon entity but not psychological experiencer (Patient), hit the wall (e.g., unconscious or dead, John's body hit the wall).I'm not sure about the distinction between readings (ii) and (iii) with the verb _hit_, but the distinction between Experiencer and Patient must be real for cases like your _weigh_ (and _cost_ and _be tall_, etc.)."

Jeff Kaplan, San Diego State University

8. "Give a look at Dowty's 1991 _Language_ paper. `Weighs' is also discussed by Jackendoff 1972, I think."

Massimo Poesio,University of Edinburgh poesiocogsci.edinburgh.ac.uk

9. "If you make use of Michael Halliday's systemic function grammar framework, you would say that `John opened the door' involved the MATERIAL PROCESS, `John saw the movie' the MENTAL PROCESS, and `John weighs 200 lbs' the RELATIONAL In each of these processes, there are particular participant roles. ------------------------------------------------------ John | opened | the door ACTOR | PROCESS | GOAL ------------------------------------------------------ John | saw | the movie SENSER | PROCESS | PHENOMENON ------------------------------------------------------ John | weighs | 200 lbs CARRIER | PROCESS | ATTRIBUTE ------------------------------------------------------ For more details, see M.A.K. Halliday, *An Introduction to Functional Grammar* (London: Edward Arnole, 1985)."

Peter Tan elltankwleonis.nus.sg

10. "In John weighs two hundred pounds John bears no special thematic role, John is merely the subject of a predicate. That is, John bears the same role or nonrole that he bears in John is male John is a mason John is good at cross-word puzzles. Consider that: John weighs two hundred pounds is rather close to the purely copular/predicative construction: John is two hundred pounds in weight."

Brian Ulicny, MIT ulicnymit.edu

11. "An overeater?"

rldavisoregon.uoregon.edu

12. "Overweight"

marantzmit.edu

13. "[It] is theme. The logic commonly leading to this classic answer is that if it's not one of the other thematic roles, it must be theme. There's a lot of disagreement about how to fully implement thematic roles; there're also several proposed definitions for theme. But many of them boil down to "theme is anything that's not one of the other roles". Please don't attribute what I've said here -- it would annoy some of my old syntax profs. :)"

Prefers to Remain Anonymous

Many thanks to all.

Jorge Guitart

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