A thematic role analysis of english motion verbs - USD Repository

A THEMATIC ROLE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH MOTION VERBS A THESIS

  Presented to the Graduate Program in English Language Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Degree Requirement for the Magister Humaniora (M.Hum) in

  English Language Studies by

  Muhammad 026332001

  Sanata Dharma University 2008

  This is to certify that all ideas, phrases and sentences, unless otherwise stated, are ideas, phrases and sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands the full consequences, including degree cancellation, if he takes somebody else’s ideas, phrases, or sentences without proper reference.

  

ABSTRACT

  MUHAMMAD. (2008) A THEMATIC ROLE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH

  Yogyakarta: English Language Studies, Graduate Program, Sanata Dharma University. Yogyakarta

  This thesis investigates the thematic roles of English motion verbs. It is an interface between syntax and semantics in which syntactical functions and thematic roles are interwoven. There are two problems to answer in this thesis. Firstly, what are the sentence patterns in which the motion verbs occur? Secondly, what are the thematic roles assigned by the motion verbs in each sentence pattern? Accordingly, the objective of this research is to describe the sentence patterns of the English motion verbs and possible thematic roles assigned by the motion verbs in each sentence.

  Both objectives are achieved through analyzing simple motional clauses or sentences collected from two monolingual dictionaries, namely Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, 2005 and Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (the third), 2001. Five consistent diagnostic tests are applied to determine the motion verbs. The data are analyzed in terms of syntactic behavior in order to answer the first question. Thematic roles of the same data are then analyzed to answer the second question.

  The analysis of the data collected is divided into two sections. In the first section the analysis is concerned with the sentence patterns of the motion verbs. In the second part, the analysis deals with the thematic roles assigned by the motion verbs.

  Based on the sentence pattern analysis, it is found that the motion verbs occur in seven simple sentence patterns, namely subject verb motion sentences, subject verb complement motion sentences, subject verb object motion sentences, subject verbs double object motion sentences, subject verb object complement motion sentences, subject verb adverbial motion sentence, and subject verb object adverbial motion sentences.

  The motion verbs in each sentence pattern assigned the thematic roles to the grammatical functions such as subjects, direct objects, oblique objects, and adverbials. The selection of thematic roles by the motion verbs depends upon the verb meaning and type such as transitive, intransitive, and ditransitive.

  In the SV and SVO sentence pattern, the subjects tend to be Agents rather than Themes. The subjects in SVC sentence patterns are mostly Themes and Agents. In SVO sentence patterns, subject agents tend to occur with object themes, object goals, object locatives and object paths. In the same clause type, subject Themes occur with object Themes, Goals, Locatives and Sources.

  In the SVOO sentence patterns, the subjects have only a thematic role of Agent assigned by the motion verbs. The objects of the motion verbs have two thematic roles, such as Theme for direct objects and Goal for the oblique object.

  The oblique objects have markers like word order, and prepositions such as for and to In the SVOC sentence patterns the motion verbs assign Agents to subjects, Theme to objects, and Goal to complements.

  In SVA sentence patterns subjects mostly become Agents and Theme while the adverbials are Sources, Goals, Locations, Manners, Paths, and Times. Accordingly, this sentence pattern has two main combinations of the thematic roles assigned by the motion verbs. Firstly, it is a combination of Agent and Theme with one adverbial’s thematic roles. Secondly, it is a combination of Agent and Theme with two adverbials’ thematic roles.

  Finally, in the SVOA sentence pattern, the subjects are mostly Agent, Theme and Instrument. In addition the Agents occur with Theme-Location, Goal- Location, Theme-Goal, Theme-Source, Theme-Instrument, Instrument-Purpose, Theme-Time, Time-Location, and Goal-Time.

  Motion verbs do not have phrasal verb forms when they are present in SVC, SVOO sentence patterns. It means that they only have simple verb forms. In other sentence patterns they can be present in both simple verb form and phrasal motion verb forms. In phrasal verb form they have particles that come after or before the objects.

  Besides showing concrete motion event, motion verbs indicate abstract motion events which refer to stationary scenes. Thematic roles of instruments,

  

themes, source and goals into the motion verbs. In certain sentence patterns the

  motion verbs can have phrasal verb forms with particles from, across, by, in, out,

along, etc that can also specify the thematic roles such as path, source, and goal.

  

ABSTRAK

  MUHAMMAD. (2006) THE THEMATIC ROLE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH

  Yogyakarta: Kajian Bahasa Inggris, Program Pasca Sarjana, Universitas Sanata Dharma. Yogyakarta

  Tesis ini meneliti peran tematik verba gerak bahasa Inggris. Studi ini merupakan perpaduan antara sintaksis dan semantik yang peran gramatikal dan sematiknya saling berjalin. Tesis ini akan mejawab dua masalah. Pertama, apa pola kalimat yang mempunyai kata kerja gerak bahasa Inggris? Kedua, peran tematik apa yang diperankan oleh fungsi-fungsi gramatikal dalam setiap pola tersebut? Dengan demikian tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk memerikan pola- pola kalimat yang mempunyai kata kerja gerak dalam bahasa Inggris dan peran tematik apa yang diperankan oleh fungsi-fungsi fungsi gramatikalnya.

  Kedua tujuan tersebut dapat dicapai dengan menganalisis klausa atau kalimat yang mengandung verba gerak yang datanya bersumber dari kamus ekabahasa, yaitu Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (the third), 2001. Dan Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English (the seventh

  

edition), 2005. Kata kerja gerak dari kedua kamus tersebut didentifikasi dengan

  menggunakan consistent diagnostic tests. Untuk menjawab masalah pertama, peneliti menganalisis data yang sudah dikumpulkan berdasarkan perilaku sintaktiknya. Setelah menentukan fungsi-fungsi gramatikalnya, data yang sama dianalisis lagi berdasarkan peran tematiknya.Hasilnya analisis ini digunakan untuk menentukan jenis verba gerak bahasa Inggris.

  Ada dua analisis dalam penelitian ini. Yang pertama adalah analisa pola- pola kalimat kata kerja gerak bahasa Inggris. Yang kedua adalah análisis peran tematik yang diperankan oleh oleh fungsi gramatikal. Pada análisis kedua ini, teori Frawley banyak diterapkan dan dilengkapi oleh teori Fillmore.

  Verba gerak juga diikuti oleh partikel seperti down, up, around, out, off,

  

up, away, by, past, dsb. Partikel ini ada sesudah atau sebelum objek. Fungsi

  gramatikal seperti subjek, objek, pelengkap, adverbia memiliki peran-peran tematik yang beragam yang tergantung pada makna dan jenis verba seperti verba transitif, intransitive dan ditransitif.

  Pada klausa berpola SV dan SVO subjek cenderung menjadi agents daripada themes tetapi sangat jarang subjek menjadi time dan locative. Pada klausa berpola SVO subject agents cenderung muncul dengan object themes,

  

object goals, object locatives dan object paths. Selain itu subject themes

berpasangan dengan object themes, goal, locative and source.

  Pada SVOO subject mempunyai peran tematik yang beragam. Pertama

  

subject sebagai agent dan jarang sekali sebagai goal. Paling sering, subject

  berperan sebagai agent yang bergandengan dengan theme dan benefactive,

  

locative dan theme, theme dan source, theme dan instrument, dan goal dan

  

instrument. Peran goal hanya bergandengan dengan theme dan locative. Pada

klausa berpola SVOC subject menjadi agent, object menjadi theme.

  Pada SVA subject sering sekali menjadi agents dan theme sedangkan

adverbials berperan sebagai source, goal, locative, manner, path, and time.

Terdapat tiga kombinasi peran tematik dalam pola klausa ini. Yang pertama, kombinasi agent dan theme yang bergandengan dengan peran tematik adverbial. Kedua, subject berkombinasi dengan theme dan dua adverbial. Terakhir, agent berkombinasi dengan theme berkombinasi dengan tiga peran tematik adverbial.

  Yang terakhir, klausa berpola SVOA memiliki subject sering sekali menjadi agent, theme and instrument. Berdasarkan kombinasinya, agent itu bergandengan dengan theme-locative, goal-locative, theme-goal, theme-source, theme-instrument, instrument purpose, theme-time, time-locative, dan goal time.

  Kata kerja gerak tidak memiliki bentuk frasa verba dalam pola kalimat SVC, dan SVOO. Artinya kata kerjanya berbentuk sederhana. Pada pola kalimat yang lain, seperti SV, SVOC, SVA dan SVOA kata kerja gerak dapat mempunyai bentuk yang sederhana, dan berbentuk frasa. Dalam bentuk verba frasa partikel yang melekat pada kata kerja gerak sering muncul sebelum ataupun sesudah objek.

  Selain menunjukkan peristiwa gerak yang konkrit, kata kerja gerak mengindikasikan gerak abstrak. Kata kerja gerak abstrak menunjukkan keadaan diam, tidak bergerak atau a static stationary. Peran tematik seperti instruments,

  

themes, source dan goal luluh ke dalam kata kerja gerak. Pada pola-pola kalimat

  tertentu kata kerja gerak mempunyai bentuk frasa verba dengan partikel seperti

  

from, across, by, in, out, along dsb. Partikel ini bisa menjadi petunjuk peran

tematik seperti path, source, dan goal.

  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  This graduate thesis is concerned with the thematic role analysis of English motion verbs. It is an interface between syntax and semantics through which syntactic functions and thematic roles are interwoven. This thesis is written in partial fulfillment of the degree requirement for the Magister Humaniora in English from the Graduate Program at Sanata Dharma University. To finish this thesis, various parties have already contributed their support in terms of ideas, book loans, etc. Therefore, let me express my gratitude to the following: First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr.

  B.B.Dwidjatmoko, M.A, my advisor who sincerely helped me finish this thesis. Second, my gratitude goes to Dr.Fr.B.Alip, M.Pd, M.A. and Dr. F.X. Mukarto, M.S. who suggested that I revise the first problem and include motion verb meaning.

  In addition, let me express my thanks to the following people who motivated me to finish this thesis. First, thanks go to the Head of the Graduate Program in English Language Studies, Sanata Dharma University and the other lecturers who introduced me to aspects of English Language Studies. Second, my thank goes to the Rector, Dean and Vice Dean of Student Affair at UAD who motivated me to finish quickly. Third, I would like to express gratitude to my beloved parents who asked me to study hard and patiently. Fourth, my greatest debt is to Michel Esser, Klaus, Vali and Nico who have supported my study financially. Fifth, thank you to my colleagues at USD, Airlangga, UGM, UI, UNY, and UNM for their support in completing this study. Lastly, thanks to my language adviser, Allison Zelkowitz, M.P.I.A. of USA.

  I realize that this thesis is still far from perfect. Therefore any constructive suggestions or ideas for this thesis improvement are happily welcome.

  Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta, 23 May 2008 Student Muhammad

  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PAGE TITLE ................................................................................................... i PAGE OF APPROVAL ................................................................................... ii PAGE OF DEFENCE APPROVAL ................................................................ iii ORIGINALITY STATEMENT...…………………………………………… iv ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... v ABSTRAK ...................................................................................................... vii ACKNOWLEDGMENT ................................................................................. ix TABLE OF CONTENT .................................................................................. x LIST OF FIGURE ........................................................................................... xiii LIST OF TABLE ............................................................................................ xiv LIST OF ABBREVIATION ........................................................................... xv

  CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background ................................................................................................

  1 1.2 Problem Limitation ....................................................................................

  8 1.3 Problem Formulation .................................................................................

  9 1.4 Research Objectives ...................................................................................

  9 1.5 Benefits of the Study..................................................................................

  10 CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW 2.1 Verbs as Events Representation ................................................................

  11 2.2 Grammatical Functions of a Sentence........................................................

  32 2.3 Thematic Role Theory ...............................................................................

  56 2.3.1 Fillmore’s Thematic Role .......................................................................

  57 2.3.2 Frawley’s Thematic Role ........................................................................

  69 CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

  3.1 _{........................................................................................................ Rese} arch Data ....................................................................................................

  86

  3.2 _{........................................................................................................ Data} Collection .................................................................................................. 87 3.3 Data Analysis .............................................................................................

  90 CHAPTER IV RESEARCH RESULT AND DISCUSSION 4. Motion Verb Types ......................................................................................

  93 4.1 SV Motion Verbs ......................................................................................

  94 4.2 SVC Motion Verbs …................................................................................

  10

  4.3 SVO Motion Verbs ................................................................................... 104

  4.4 SVOO Motion Verbs ................................................................................ 118

  4.5 SVOC Motion Verbs.................................................................................. 123

  4.6 SVA Motion Verbs ................................................................................... 127

  4.6.1 Two Thematic Role Combination........................................................... 128

  4.6.2 Three Thematic Role Combination ……..…………………………….. 147

  4.7 SVOA Motion Verb Types ........................................................................ 151

  4.7.1 Three Thematic Role Combination ........................................................ 152

  4.7.2 Four Thematic Role Combination …...…………………….................... 164

  CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

  5.1 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 171

  5.2 Suggestion ................................................................................................. 174

  

BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 176

APPENDICES

Appendix 1 A List of Alphabetic Motion Verbs...……………………........ 179

Appendix 2 A List of Active Based on Diagnostic Tests..……………........ 204

Appendix 3 Motion Verb Sentence Patterns

  Appendix 3.a SV Motion Verb Sentence Pattern ...……………………........ 218 Appendix 3.b SVC Motion Verb Sentence Pattern ……………………........ 218 Appendix 3.c SVO Motion Verb Sentence Pattern ..………………….......... 219 Appendix 3.d SVOO Motion Verb Sentence Pattern…..……………............ 220 Appendix 3.e SVOC Motion Verb Sentence Pattern ..………………........... 220

  Appendix 3.f SVA Motion Verb Sentence Pattern .....………………........... 220 Appendix 3.g SVOA Motion Verb Sentence Pattern ..………………........... 223

  Appendix 4 Thematic Roles of Motion Verbs Sentence Patterns

  Appendix 4.a Thematic Roles in SV Sentence Pattern..…..…………........... 228 Appendix 4.b Thematic Roles in SVC Sentence Pattern..……………........... 230 Appendix 4.c Thematic Roles in SVO Sentence Pattern..……………........... 231 Appendix 4.d Thematic Roles in SVOO Sentence Pattern..……………........ 233 Appendix 4.e Thematic Roles in SVOC Sentence Pattern..……………........ 234 Appendix 4.f Thematic Roles in SVA Sentence Pattern..……………........... 135 Appendix 4.g Thematic Roles in SVOA Sentence Pattern..……………........ 240

  

LIST OF FIGURE

  FIGURE 1: A PROCEDURE TO ANSWER QUESTION 1 and 2. …................ 89 FIGURE 2: A PROCEDURE TO CLASSIFY THE MOTION VERBS. …........ 92

  

LIST OF TABLE

Table 4.1. The Thematic Roles of the Subject in SV ..……………................ 97Table 4.2. The Thematic Roles of the Subject in SVC ……………................102Table 4.3. The Thematic Roles of the Subject and Object in SVO …………..109

  Table 4.4.The Thematic Roles of Subject, Double Objects in SVOO ……….121 Table 4.5.The Thematic Roles of Subject, Objects in SVOC ……………......125

Table 4.6. The Thematic Roles of Subject, and Adverbial in SVA …………..130Table 4.7. The Thematic Roles of Subject Agent, and Dual Adverbial……….148Table 4.8. The Thematic Roles of Subject, Object and Adverbial in SVOA…153Table 4.9. The Thematic Roles of Subject, Object and 2 Adverbials in SVOA .166Table 4.10. The Thematic Roles Assigned by the Motion Verbs ……………..170

  A : Agent, Author Ben : Benefactive C : Complement DO : Direct Object E : Experiencer G : Goal I : Instrument

  

A LIST OF ABBREVIATION

  IO : Indirect Object L : Locative M : Manner NP : Noun Phrase O : Object P : Patient, Path, Purpose PP : Preposition Phrase PRO : Pronoun R : Reason S : Subject, Source SVO : Subject Verb Object SVC : Subject Verb Complement SV C : Subject Verb Object Complement SVA : Subject Verb Adverbial SVOA : Subject Verb Object Adverbial T : Theme, Time V : Verb Pt : Progressive Test PCt. : Pseudo Cleft Construction Test WHt : What Happened Test It : Imperative Test CDAt : Carefully and deliberately adverb

• : Fit

  

INTRODUCTION

  A verb encodes event as a noun represents entities, a cover term for all relatively atemporal regions or individuals including persons, places, and things. The verb encodes events like state, or condition of existence, process or unfolding, and actions or executed

  

action. In English the state can be represented by use of the verb be like in she is happy. In

  this sentence, the verb is shows a condition of the pronoun he; he does not execute anything.

  English verbs do not only show a state but also denote a process like in they

  

become friends, he got angry, Mary became an English teacher ¸ she will be a nurse, and

he will be an English teacher. In the clause they become friends, the verb become is a

  process verb where they and friends are the entities that undergo a change from not being friends to being friends. In the sentence he got angry, the verb got is a process verb in which he and angry are entities that play roles in becoming angry. In the clause it falls dry, the entities it and dry play a role in changing from one condition to another condition. In the construction she will be a nurse, the entities she and a nurse involve a process of being in one state and then another. Finally, in the clause he will be an English lecturer, the entities he and an English lecturer involve an unfolding from a condition to another.

  An event such as an action can be seen via process, causation, and motion that are all presented in certain verbs. The verbs themselves require relatively particulars that consistently change in a sense that verbs are essentially tied to change, or either change themselves or bring about a change in the entities associated with them.

  Strictly speaking, the essential criterion of verbs is a change and this is related to

  

temporalities; therefore it derives a category of a verb. This means that a change and

temporality determine the type of event that is represented by verbs.

  In line with the verb as an event representation, Langacker (in Frawley 1992) states that there are two basic objects that mentally project domain of reference namely, things and relations.

  Furthermore, he says that a thing is related to the entities that constitute a semantic property of nouns, but relation is related to verbs that show an event. In other words, thing is represented by a noun while a verb is just a representation of a relation which shows an event. Therefore a verb is event representation, which is in relation to change, process and

  time.

  A verb as the event representation may denote state, process, and action, each of which has a different form. Frawley (1992) proposes that there are four main types of events such as acts, states, causes and motion. The events can be manifested by verbs in various forms.

  Every language has such different representation of the events. For example acts and states have a fundamental distinction, as the following constructions show.

  (1) a. John stole $ 25.

  b. The car cost $ 500.

  The verb stole in (1.a.) expresses an event controlled, executed, or carried out by

  

John as one of the participants. However, similar thing can be said for (1.b.) in which the

  event is encoded by the verb cost, which tends to show a condition of existence or an attribute rather than a procedure controlled or enacted by the participants. The verb in

  (1.a.) is an active event representation because of the participant’s control but the verb in (1.b.) a stative event representation because there is no execution of the action by the participant.

  Stative events, which contrasts with active events are internally uniform and

  structured, and both appear to be heterogeneous. Their structure is different from the active events; therefore their scope is distinctive. For example, the scope of a stative event is an event in totality while the active one is based on its components, which can be clearly illustrated by 2.a and 2.b.

  (2) a. Ali likes rutabagas.

  b. Ali is liking rutabagas. (more and more) The verb like in (2.a.) expresses a mental state where the entire event is denoted as an undifferentiated phenomenon while in (2.b.) an active interpretation is forced by the progressive tense (be + - ing).

  However, a verb is not simply defined as an event, morphological features and syntactic criterion can also identify verbs. From a morphological point of view, the English language, for example has prefixes, suffixes for verb determination. English verbs can be derived from other verbs by the use of prefixes like re- in repaint, re-enter, re-write un- in

  

untie, and untangle, de- in decompose, and desensitize, dis- in disbelieve, and disentangle.

  English verbs can also derive from nouns and adjectives. The verbs derived from nouns can be indicated by some suffixes like de- in debug, deforest, and delouse, -ise in

  

organize, patronize, and terrorize, -fy as in beautify, gentrify, and petrify. Prefix –en can be

  attached to adjectives to create verbs like in enrage, empower, enslave, enfeeble, enthrone, and entomb. The addition of the suffix –en to adjectives can produce some verbs like

  

strengthen, enliven, embolden, tighten, loosen, stiffen, weaken, widen, redden, deepen,

toughen, etc.

  In addition to the morphological point of view, syntactical criteria play an important role in verbs determination. This feature deals with whether a verb overtly needs subject or an object in a sentence. In this way, a verb is something that takes a

  

subject or object. In other words, both syntactical functions determine the verb and its

  types, which the following four sentences show: (3).Tommy is very sick now.

  (4).Mary and her friends are beside Anton. (5).Donna was very ill yesterday. (6).His friends were beside John two days ago.

  From the syntactic analysis, the verbs is, are, was and were require the presence of subject. In sentence (3), the verb is as a linking verb shows the presence of a singular subject, Tommy. Also, the verb are in (4) occurs as it is because there is a plural subject

  

Mary, and her friends. This means that the verb changes its form because of the number of

the subject.

  In addition, the verbs was, and were in (5) and (6) just show a form change, i.e. is into was, and are into were because of the number and tense change. However the syntactical verb determination fails to encode a certain event which is usually represented by a verb. Therefore, the syntactic verb definitions seem to only operate in the verb form change, e.g. her mother baked loaves of bread very well, and her friends baked loaves of

  

bread very well. The verb baked does not undergo a change although the singular subject

  

her mother precedes the verb and the plural her friends comes before the verb. Thus,

English verbs are syntactically operative on the level of certain structural phenomenon.

  However at the level of seeing an event, syntactic verb conception fails to determine a type of an event and that’s why semantic verb definition is an alternative choice. In terms of semantic analysis, a verb denotes a state, a process, and an action as the events. In other words, state, process and action are the events that verbs present. The three events have a closely semantic relation with the verbs. The verbs are pictures of semantically events driven. The process event appears in verbs become, get, increase etc.

  The state event presents in verbs be, is, cost, lie, etc. The action events occur in verbs give, take, bring, drive, go, etc.

  Events can be divided into four main kinds, i.e. state, process, action, and motion which are closely related to change, time, manner and relation because an event itself is a relatively temporal relation in conceptual space. A process is a series of states that in sequential or successive grouping constitute a phenomenon as a whole. It is related to a change and only refers to relational aspects of events in which time is also required for an event. An action refers to an event that is controlled, executed, or carried out with distinct effect on the participant, and state deals with an event that shows condition of existence or attribute rather than procedure enacted or controlled.

  In terms of the events, there are two types of English verbs, i.e. stative and active verbs which may be identified by five consistent diagnostic syntactic tests namely the

  

progressive test, pseudo-cleft construction, what happened, the imperative test, and the use

of the adverbs carefully and deliberately.

  The progressive test may modify active verbs into verb plus –ing. For example, the verb run in John runs very fast can be a progressive form, and it becomes John is

  

running very fast. However, stative verbs cannot pass this test, for example his car is

  

costing $ 500,000.The psuedo-cleft construction test indicates the active verbs, for example

what John did was run very fast. However this fails to work with a stative verb as in what

his car did was cost $ 500,000. Then what happened test also assesses an active verb for

  example in what happened to John? The answer is that John got an accident. Appositely, the test fails when examining a stative verb for instance what happened to cloth.

  Additionally, an imperative sentence can also test an active event such as in please come to

my house. In this sentence, come is an active verb because it can be in an imperative form.

  Finally, the adverbs carefully and deliberately are applicable to test stative verbs as in John

  

drove the car very carefully and Jimmy kicked the boy deliberately. But the adverbs of

carefully and deliberately are not applicable to stative verbs, for example the cloth cost $

30.000 deliberately or Mary is sick carefully.

  The active event itself can be classed into two types, i.e. a cause and a motion. Causation is related to two events each of which plays a different role. The prior event causes the next in a sense that the later event happens because of the previous event.

  Therefore the two events are closely related. For example, John killed Mary and Mary is

  

dead. In those sentences, the next event happens because of the action killing done by

John.

  Motion event means a movement in a sense that it is the process of moving or the way that someone or something moves. It then implies three things in motion namely (1) someone or something moving (2) the movement itself or motion, and (3) the manner of the movement. For example, John ran in the stadium in which John did the movement by running in the place stadium. In that sentence, Subject-agent moved himself by running in the stadium. It then has three aspects, namely displaced thing, time interval and space.

  Conceptually speaking it has a basic structure, i.e. displacement of entities. It entails the displacement of some entity and positional change. Thus, it is an abstractly displaced (x).

  According to Frawley (1992), the motion event represent by the verbs in a sentence assigns eight semantic roles to the arguments i.e. theme, source, goal, path, site, cause,

  

manner, and conveyance. It requires that something moves or displayed; and it is called a

theme or figure. For example, the verb throw in John throws the ball has a theme, the ball.

  Furthermore, it needs a source or the origin of entity movement, and goal, or the destination where the entity moves. The role source and goal is usually indicated syntactically by from and to. For instance, John ran from his room to the school. His room is the origin of the action running and it is a source; the school is the destination where

  

John ran to and it is the goal of the action running. To perform a motion act, a verb needs

  a location where the action takes place. Location is syntactically indicated by the prepositions in, and at, for example, we usually run in the stadium. Furthermore, a motion event requires a path as in he went along the river. As seen in the previous sentence, the preposition along indicates the path.

  It can then be stated that motion covers an entity displacement and a change of position. From the semantic point of view, the motion has structure which is so called a semantic structure built around a central verb. The central is the verbs accompanied by nouns or other elements with a series of thematic roles.

  According to Chafe (in Cook 1989:65), the element of the semantic structure is a verb or a predicate and a noun or an argument. The predicate is generally verbs that describe events; arguments are generally nouns referring to things, including physical objects and reified abstractions. The verb is central and the nouns are peripheral.

  Accordingly, motion is an event represented by the verbs in sentences. It uses nouns as the arguments. Thus, a motion event deals with a relation between verbs and nouns that have thematic roles in a certain sentence.

  In the analysis of motion event, the verbs are considerable understandable because they are (1) semantically present in sentences, (2) determine the thematic roles assigned to nouns and (3) show the inflectional units, like inflection indicating the past, and present tense or indicating aspects like progressive, perfect, and imperfect simultaneously added to the entire sentence. Accordingly, there are three essential aspects of motion verb analyzed, noun and verb relation manifested in English sentences, the grammatical functions of the nouns, and the thematic roles assigned to the grammatical functions in relation to the motion verbs in sentences.

  A motion event has a closely related syntactic and semantic structure. In terms of syntactic analysis, a motion verb requires the grammatical functions, such as a subject, an object, a complement, and an adverbial that bear semantic roles, i.e. the verb got in John

  

got the letter from his mother. The sentence shows a movement of the letter in which the

  subject John is assigned a goal role (G), the object the letter is a figure (F), and the object

  

his mother is a source (S). Accordingly, it can be clarified that the subject can be assigned

  as a goal (G), the object can function as a figure (F) and the object can be a source (S) semantically. Another example is the pencil rolled off the table. The verb rolled is a motion verb in which the subject the pencil is a theme (T), the object the table is the figure (F), the preposition off is path (P) and the verb rolled itself shows manner (M), the way the subject theme moved.

  Based on the above description and explanation, there are some problems to address. These are the limits of morphological and syntactical criteria of identifying verbs, and inconsistent traditional definitions of verbs like transitive, intransitive, and di-transitive verb. These two problems are not discussed in this thesis. The other problems are the four main types of event such as act, state, causation and motion.

  To cover all these problems would be exhausting and cause the discussion to be unfocused. Therefore, the researcher will only discuss English motion verbs with their sentence patterns, and thematic roles assigned to grammatical functions. Furthermore, I will discuss the pattern of English motion verbs in terms of the thematic roles assigned to the grammatical functions.

  1.3 Problem Formulation

  Taking into consideration the problem limitations in 1.2, this thesis will mainly focus on finding the answer to the following questions:

  1. In what sentence patterns do the motion verbs occur?

  2. What thematic roles do the motion verbs in each pattern show? The data sources for answering the questions are the English monolingual dictionary that includes motion verb sentences. Applying five consistent diagnostic tests on stative and active event will indicate the motion verbs.

  1.4 Research Objectives

  Based on this problem formulation, it is obvious that questions require comprehensive answers to adequately describe and explain the English motion verbs. To meet this purpose, this research is aimed at describing:

  1. The possible English sentence patterns with motion verbs

  2. The thematic roles assigned by the motion verbs in each pattern.

  Theoretically, the result of linguistic research should at least enrich linguistic knowledge. This research will provide a simple and comprehensive understanding on the thematic role of English motion verbs. In addition, the research findings will highlight the English motion verb types for the readers.

  

CHAPTER TWO

THEORETICAL REVIEW

  This thesis is aimed at describing the sentence patterns of English motion verbs and the thematic roles assigned by the verbs to the grammatical functions in each pattern. To fulfill the study objectives, three main theories must first be explained. They are [1] verbs as the event representation [2] the grammatical functions of the sentence patterns and [3] thematic roles assigned to the grammatical functions in the sentences.

  Linguists define verbs in various ways. Verbs are defined in terms of traditional grammar, syntactic and morphological manner, and semantic motivation. Based on traditional grammar, a verb is defined as the grammatical category that represents the action in a sentence. This definition is influenced by Greek-Latin grammar that is based on philosophical concepts. Although it is philosophical, this definition works in certain areas and fails in others like in John is very ill now. From this definition, the verb is does not entirely show an action rather the condition of being sick because John is really doing

  

nothing. The traditional definition, also called a notional verb conception, falls through

  because not all verbs are actions; however, when actions are expressed, they overwhelmingly tend to surface as verbs.

  Based on the syntactic definition, a verb can be defined as something that takes a subject or object. From this point of view a verb encodes a form class, which is identified by the syntactic criteria. Therefore the verb is in the sentence above is a verb because its form is a function of the subject singularity. If the number of the subject changes, the verb form changes in response, for example, John and Marry are very sick now. The purely formal definition of verbs above works at some levels because verbs are entirely structural phenomena.

  In terms of the morphological point of view, verbs are indicated by their endings such as, –ize in globalize and economize -fy in beautify, and -en in widen.

  Accordingly, verbs encode events, a cover term for states or condition of existence, processes or unfolding, and action or executed processes. Nouns are defined in the same way. Nouns represent entities, a cover term for all atemporal regions or individuals including persons, places and things. (Frawley: 1992:140)

  According to Davidson (1980) in Frawley (1992:142), the essence of events is change, either changing themselves as in the case of their own derivation by cause and effect, or bringing about a change in the entities associated with them while entities or

  

substance or object as Davison calls them are individuated by their sameness in spatial

  coordinate. In brief, change is the essential criterion of events. The change is related to temporality which is another verb criterion. Therefore change and temporality motivate the verbs categoriality accordingly.

  Other linguists like Thompson, Givon and Langacker also share their ideas on the categoriality of verbs. Hopper and Thompson (1984, 1985) in Frawley (1992) argue that the informational requirements of discourse motivate the categoriality of nouns and verbs, with overt form reflecting the relative individuation of the information encoded by the form. Overt verbal categoriality then reflects the degree to which the events reported are individuated in discourse. From the point of view, events should have full informational status.

  In addition to full informational status, tense is also important. It increases the informational status of the event encoded by the verbs or ‘eventhood’. Returning to Davidson’s insight, prototypical events are associated with change and change is measured over time. However, for Hopper and Thompson, the degree of eventhood is reflected in the degree to which the forms in discourse surface as verbs.

  Givon and Langacker share the same criterion for verbal categoriality—the temporality of events. For Givon (1979, 1984) in Frawley (1992:144) grammatical categories are motivated by the perceived temporal stability of their typical referents. These are prototypically events or actions, and the languages tend to lexicalize them as verbs. Thus, Givon’s and Davidson’s views are similar in this way but Givon uses change

  over time as the essential criterion.

  Langacker, another semanticist, believes that two basic objects— thing and

  

relation—constitute a mentally projected domain of reference. The former corresponds to

entities that are encoded as nouns. Relations are either temporal or atemporal, with the

  latter underlying prepositions, adverbs and adjectives and the former corresponding to verbs. He furthermore says that a verb is a symbolic expression whose semantic pole designates a process. (Frawley, 1992:144)

  Both Givon and Langacker presuppose the time essentiality, but privilege change and process. Givon relies on stability within time but Langacker emphasizes time priority by defining a process as something with a temporal characteristic because a processual predication has a positive temporal profile. Thus both of them support the events denotation.