THETA THEORY

By
Mustafa Abdulsahib Abdulkareem

Mustafa111alhassan@gmail.com
 Theta theory One of the (sub-)theories of government and
binding theory. Its main principle is the theta-criterion, which
requires that every argument is assigned just one theta role and
that every theta role is assigned to just one argument. Its main
role is to determine the positions to which NP-movement is
possible.(Crystal,1980:28)

Theta theory deals with the functional relationships between

a predicate and its arguments: a predicate is said to assign theta
role to each of its arguments, i.e. the semantic relationship
between the verb and noun phrase of a sentence, such as agent ,
theme , location , instrument , goal , source . Part of theta theory
is the theta criterion, a requirement that each argument of the
verb receives one and only one theta role and each theta role is
assigned to one and only one argument, on the other words ,
theta-criterion is the proposed universal principle stating that a
particular thematic role may occur only once in a sentence.
Taken together, these principles ensure that a verb will be
associated with just the right number of lexical arguments. So,
for example, a normal transitive verb like catch is associated
with two lexical arguments, and the theta criterion will ensure
that it occurs with two lexical NPs. In a sentence like "The cat
caught the mouse", catch will assign the roles agent and theme
to its subject and object expressions. In this example subject and
object correspond to agent and theme, but it should be noted that
the thematic argument of a verb need not necessarily correspond
to subject and object.

1
 Suppose, for example, that we derive the passive, as
suggested above, from a deep structure of the form ‘NP1—was
—Passive Participle—NP2 (by NP3)’. We must ensure, as noted
above, that NP1 is empty, that NP2 has a lexical NP, and that
NP3, if chosen, also has a lexical NP. Theta theory will do this
by ensuring that the verb assigns the theta role, agent, to NP3, if
it is chosen, and the role of theme necessarily to NP2. NP1 will
receive no theta role. By the theta criterion, the verb is
associated with the right number of arguments and the subject
slot is empty: just what we wanted!

As a further example, consider a verb like seem. Seem is

associated with no lexical arguments, and hence will assign no
theta roles. In a sentence like It seems that the cat caught the
mouse the lexical NPs (cat and mouse) bear functional (theta)
relationships to the verb catch in the subordinate clause, and
receive their theta roles from that verb.

What then of it? The traditional description would have it as

a pleonastic or dummy subject, with no argument relation to the
verb, but supplied because English sentences require tensed
verbs to have grammatical subjects. The deep structure will then
have the general form: NP (empty) seems (the cat chased the
dog): a later rule will ensure that an empty NP with no theta role
will be supplied with it.

A further principle of theta theory is the Projection

principle. This ensures that the Theta marking properties of each
lexical item are represented, or projected, at each syntactic level:
D-structure; S-structure and logical form. In the case of seem
this means that the D-structure subject of seems cannot be a
lexical NP argument, but that the subject and object of like must

2
be lexical NP arguments. It will be supplied between D- and S-
structure and hence will be the S-structure subject of seem, but
at no point is it an argument (Malmkjær and
Anderson,1991:663)

The theta-criterion is the process of assigning thematic roles

is sometimes called theta assignment .this term refer to the
grammatical activity of spreading information from the verb to
its noun phrase and prepositional phrase satellites . In a sentence
like the boy opened the door with the key , open is represented
in the lexicon as follows:
Open , V ___ NP , PP (Agent , Theme , Instrument)
Theta assignment assign Agent to the subject noun phrase .
Theme to the direct object , and instrument to the preposition
phrase .
We find the evidence in sentences such as Who will Bill kiss?
Who is the theme of kiss , and Bill is the agent , despite their
relative position in the sentence . If we examine the deep
structure, Bill will kiss who , we see that theta assignment
assigns the role of subject to Bill and theme to who ,in
accordance with the lexical entry of kiss:
Kiss, V___NP(Agent ,Theme)
The transformational rules of wh movement and Move Aux
produce the surface structure Who will kiss Bill? Leaving the
thematic role relationships intact . In fact an important constraint
on transformations is that they don’t affect thematic roles, which
are determined in deep structure.

3
 A universal principle has been proposed called the theta-
criterion , which states in part that a particular thematic role may
occur only once in a sentence . Thus sentences like:
*The boy opened the door with the key with a lock-pick.
are semantically anomalous because two noun phrases bear the
thematic role of instrument .the theta-criterion is a constraint on
theta assignment . It permits one assignment per thematic role. If
all objects do not receive athematic role after theta assignment is
completed , the result is anomalous .
In English the thematic role of possessor is indicated two
ways syntactically : either as the boy 's red hat or as the red hat
of the boy. However ,*the boy and Bill have the thematic role of
possessor.
The sematic relations that exist between verbs and phrases
are part of every speaker's linguistic competence , and account
for much of the meaning in language
(Fromkin,Rodman,Hyams.,2003:195).
Cook and Newson, (1988:49) add that syntax is also
concerned with semantic relationships between the parts of the
sentence __ who is doing what to whom __ called in principles
and parameters theory ө-theory. These form a crucial part of the
syntactic meaning of the sentence relevant to logic form .a
sentence such as:
Sally gave Jim a record .
has three ө-roles : Sally refers to the person who is carrying out
the action, the record to the object affected by it , Jim to the
person who receives it . Principles and parameters theory
handles ө-theory. Again ө-theory takes into account how lexical

4
items behave , for example the verb give always has a Goal ө-
role.
She gave the money to charity.
But drink does not:
*He is drinking it to somebody.
A verb such as give assigns three ө-roles to NPs :
He gave the suspect a bad time.
That is to say he , the suspect and a bad time are all NPs
bearing ө-roles projected from the verb give . ө-roles express
certain meaning relationships between elements , a type of
meaning directly relevant to the LF component and indirectly
relevant to the semantic component . it is also important that
each Noun Phrase has such a relationship ,ө-role, guaranteed by
a requirement of ө-theory known as the ө-criterion.

Finally, thematic roles express the kind of relation that

holds between the arguments of the verbs throw, buy, and fly
are linked to the presence of the thematic roles of theme, source,
and goal. Verbs like awaken or frighten have a feature "affects
mental state" so that one of its arguments takes on the thematic
role of experiencer. Thematic role assignment, or theta
assignment, is also connected to syntactic structure. In the
sentence "the boy threw the read ball to the girl" the role of
theme is assigned to the direct object the ball and the role of
goal to the indirect object the girl.

5
 Bibliography

Cook, V.,Newson, M. (1988). Chomsky's universal grammar.

London: Blackwell publishers Ltd.

Crystal, D (1980). A Dictionary of Linguistics and phonetics.

Australia: Blackwell publishing Ltd.

Fromkin,V.,Rodman,R,Hyams,N. (2003). An introduction to

Language. United states: Michael Rosenberg.

Malmkjar, K.,Anderson,J .(1991). The Linguistic encyclopedia.

America: Routledge 11 New Fetter lane, London EC4P 4EE.