Semantic Role Labeling

22.2 Diathesis alternations

1. How can the arguments of break be realized syntactically?
   AGENT/subject, THEME/object, INSTRUMENT/with-PP (“John broke the window with a rock”); INSTRUMENT/subject (“The rock broke the window”); THEME/subject (“The window broke”, “The window was broken by John”).
   • Jurafsky & Martin, Speech and Language Processing, 3rd ed. draft, ch. 22, §22.2, p. 501
2. What is a thematic grid (θ-grid, case frame)?
   The set of thematic role arguments a verb takes.
   • Jurafsky & Martin, Speech and Language Processing, 3rd ed. draft, ch. 22, §22.2, p. 501
3. What are verb (diathesis) alternations? Give the dative alternation.
   Multiple argument structure realizations of a verb’s roles. Dative alternation: “Doris gave the book to Cary” vs “Doris gave Cary the book”, the THEME and GOAL in either order.
   • Jurafsky & Martin, Speech and Language Processing, 3rd ed. draft, ch. 22, §22.2, p. 501
4. Which verbs participate in the dative alternation, and where are verb classes catalogued?
   Particular semantic classes: verbs of future having (offer, owe), send verbs (mail, hand), verbs of throwing (kick, throw)… Levin (1993) lists the classes and alternations of thousands of English verbs; VerbNet puts them online, linked to WordNet and FrameNet.
   • Jurafsky & Martin, Speech and Language Processing, 3rd ed. draft, ch. 22, §22.2, pp. 501–502