A Contrastive Study of the Classification of Semantic Roles and Grammatical Relations in English and Japanese

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25770186
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: English linguistics
• Research Institution: Toho University
• Principal Investigator: OSAWA Mai 東邦大学, 薬学部, 講師 (70610830)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 意味役割 / by句 / 動作主 / 原因

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study mainly investigated the adequacy of an assumed presupposition that a by-phrase occurring in a passive sentence always introduces an agent argument. In particular, this study (1) pointed out the possibility that the semantic roles of the argument of a by-phrase in a passive sentence can be divided into Agent and Cause, after surveying several previous studies, (2) tried to find out if the comparison of "ni" and "ni totte" phrases in Japanese passive sentences to by-phrases in English passive sentences can support the validity of this classification of the semantic roles, and (3) surveyed two kinds of semantic role theories, Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis and Proto-Roles Hypothesis, to figure out which hypothesis can fully explain about the semantic role of the argument of a by-phrase in a passive sentence .

Free Research Field

英語学