1.

Grammatical Relations and Semantic Roles of Active Clauses in ‘Crazy Rich Asian’

Novel

2. Background of the Study

Words can be involved to some categories, part of speech. All of the

categories can be found within sentences, noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and other

closed word classes. In operating a clause, the terms frequently found are verb with

its subject and the other elements. Accordingly, transitivity and valence of a verb deal

with subject and object it takes.

A Verb in English requires at least a subject to operate a grammatical

sentence. In other words, a participant must be involved within a clause. Therefore,

Kroeger (2005: 53) defined that the individuals (or participants) of whom the

property or relationship is claimed to be true are called arguments. The participants

previously implied are regarded as arguments. Moreover, a verb may take more

participants to involve in a clause it operates. In other words, different verb possibly

takes different number of argument. When a predicate is asserted to be true of the

right number of arguments, the result is a well-formed proposition: a “complete

thought”

Syntactic structure or grammatical structure may motivate form of arguments

that a verb assigns. When a clause consists of pronouns, the form of the pronoun

depends on its case, either nominative or accusative case form. In English, pronoun is

distinguished based on its case, nominative and accusative case form. The first person

1
 2

singular pronoun stands as I; on the other hand, it turns to me when its case is

accusative. In addition, the order or position of the argument also denotes its case.
 3

Argument does not always stands with a pronoun form; it probably takes the form of

nominal types. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with grammatical relation of

arguments since it describes the structure of arguments that a verb can assign.

Grammatical relation provides mapping of form and position of an argument.

However, to convey a message, it is necessary to deal with meaning, in this case the

semantic structure. The grammatical structure or the surface structure provides

information about what form and where the argument stands. On the other hand, the

semantic function will provide the relation of arguments and the verb. It is necessary,

for instance, to recognize whether an argument plays a role of agent or experiencer.

Verbs involved to mental states and emotions tend to assign an experiencer. On the

other hand, an action verb tends to associate with agent.

Agent which is based on semantic function or role of an argument is

frequently found confusing. The term agent has been frequently associated with and

assumed as syntactic function of subject, mostly in passive sentence. This traditional

understanding of grammar will lead us wrong; therefore, this study will try to

examine how grammatical relation and semantic role are associated within active

clauses.

3. Problems of the Study

Based on the background of the study, the problem of the study will be

presented as follows.
 4

1. What grammatical relations are operated within active clauses in the novel

of ‘Crazy Rich Asian’?

2. What semantic role does the argument have within active clauses in the

novel of ‘Crazy Rich Asian’?

4. Aims of the Study

In accordance with the problems of the study, the aims of the study will be

presented as follows.

1. To recognize what grammatical relations are operated within active

clauses in the novel of ‘Crazy Rich Asian’

2. To recognize what semantic role the arguments have within active clauses

in the novel of ‘Crazy Rich Asian’

5. Scope of Discussion

The discussion within this study will involve grammatical relations and

semantic roles of arguments within clauses and sentences in the novel of Crazy Rich

Asian. The clauses and sentences will be taken into the data if they are considered as

active or passive clauses and sentences. Huddleston and Pullum (2005: 26) stated that

it is allowed to present information in various ways. The terms active and passive

were mentioned related to how the information is packaged. In other words, the focus

of this study lies on discussing data in the level of clause and sentence which is

involved to active or passive notion.

 5

6. Research Method

This study is involved to library research, and it will be conducted where the

data is collected through reading books or other sources. Research method is defined

as a system of working in order to achieve the determined goals with easier and more

effective ways. According to Zaim (2014: 22), linguistics research or linguistics study

is divided into two types of study, descriptive and historic comparative method.

Descriptive method is the method that will be applied in this study which depicts

linguistics phenomena based on how language actually works. The research method

within this study consists of data source, method and technique of collecting data,

method and technique of analyzing data, and method and technique of presenting

data.

6.1 Data Source

According to Zaim (2014: 74), data is defined as a number of facts managed

by the researcher. Data shows what will be examined, and the data within this study

will be taken from a novel of which the title is ‘Crazy Rich Asians’. This novel was

published in 2013, and the author of this novel is Kevin Kwan. This novel is chosen

as the data source of this study since it shows how language actually works within

written text and some dialogue as well. Therefore, it is expected that the analysis will

show how language is actually used.

6.2 Method and Technique of Collecting Data

 6

The method applied in collecting the data will be documentary that was

proposed by Bungin (2011) by reading through the source and finding clauses. The

first step of data collection will be reading the novel and finding clauses and

sentences involved to active and passive. The active and passive clauses and

sentences will be sorted based on its structure which has extra element, be verb. After

the data have been obtained, classification of the data will be conducted based on its

voice, active and passive.

6.3 Method and Technique of Analyzing Data

Descriptive qualitative method will be conducted while analyzing the data.

The data are going to be analyzed based on how the language or linguistics properties

work. It works on the relation within the language units or linguistics properties.

Based on the grammatical relation and semantic structure of the argument, it will be

mapped to its syntactic and semantic role.

6.4 Method and Technique of Presenting Data

The analyzed data will be presented in informal method by Zaim (2014:114).

Data analysis presentation will be conducted by using the description of the analyzed

data. Verbs and arguments within the sorted clauses will be separated. Verb and

arguments separated will be presented in a subcategorization. Those data will be

described in term of its grammatical relation and semantic role.

7. Review of Literature, Concepts, and Theoretical Framework

 7

Some studies have also been reviewed in order to find the relevance of the

previous studies. In addition, concepts and theory related to the study will be

presented within this sub chapter.

7.1 Literature Review

Arta (2020) within an undergraduate thesis entitled Argument Structure and

the Semantic role also described this issue, related to grammatical relation and the

semantic role of arguments. The data was taken from corpus, in this case COCA.

Accordingly, the theory applied in this previous study is relevant with this current

study, Kroeger (2005). However, the scope and the data source will be different. The

scope of the discussion in the previous study was limited to the declarative sentence,

in this case it was based on sentence mood.

Yuniartati (2017) on her undergraduate thesis entitled Syntactic Functions of

Deverbal Nouns Found in Huffington Post Website: Morphosyntactic Approach

analyzed the nominal suffixes that certainly form noun and their syntactic function.

The theory of suffixes by Quirk that form nouns was applied in recognizing the first

problem, finding out the suffixes. The following theory, lexical functional grammar

by Falk is relevant with this study since similar understanding of syntactic function,

another term of grammatical relation, is used to map the deverbal noun; in this study,

the understanding of syntactic function is used to map the arguments, those are also

nouns/ noun phrases. However, the framework used is different with this study,
 8

constituent structure and functional structure were used as the representation of the

NPs; therefore, the grammatical properties were shown in detail. Although the theory

makes the data analysis more detail and uses the terms of OBJ and OBJ2, the

difference between both and how it differs from traditional grammar is not clearly

explained. In addition, the syntactic functions found after the analysis were subject

and object. The study of Yuniartati is different with this study in term of topic; yet,

one of theories applied was relevant.

Dewi (2018) on her undergraduate thesis entitled the Morphosyntax of

English Deverbal Noun in the Straits Times Website also tried to recognize the

suffixes those form noun and their syntactic function. These two studies are relevant

in terms of theory they used to analyze the syntactic function, and this similarity were

also applied in this study in mapping the syntactic function of the argument structure.

However, the theory which became the framework that was used to analyze the

syntactic function is different with this study. The theory was proposed by Randolph

Quirk (1985) that divided the syntactic function, another term of grammatical

relation, into four functions – subject, object, complement, and adverbial. However,

the two of those syntactic functions can be subcategorized, they are object, direct

object and indirect object, and complement, subject and object complement. In

addition, different finding occurs that the syntactic functions applied in the data were

subject, object, subject complement, and object complement.

Udayana (2016) on his article, Argument Structure at Syntax-Discourse

Interface, in the proceeding of the Third International Conference on English across

 9

Culture, tried to discover that argument is not only motivated by the lexico-semantics

of a verb but it can be also the interface of syntax and discourse. In other word, he

tried to find the effect of information structure on argument. According to his claim,

there are three constructions which have the notion of information structure

phenomena – dummy it, passive, and antipassive. In dummy it, it plays important role

in preserving syntactic function or grammatical relation although it does not possess

any semantic content. He therefore concluded that it is the role of discourse,

information structure or syntax. However, the theory used as the framework in

analyzing the data was not arranged in a complete thought. There are some citation

which refers to Birner and G. Ward (2004); nevertheless, it is not clear that whose

theory was assumed to map those three constructions. In addition, the data that is

used in this study are more acceptable in term of validity since the data in this study

were taken from Corpus of Contemporary America that consists of data of how

language is used in a various way; in contrast, there is no clear source where the data

were taken from in the article.

The last review was conducted with an undergraduate thesis entitled The

Argument Structure of Passive Clauses Found in English Novels proposed by Sari

(2021). This undergraduate thesis concerned on the grammatical relations and the

semantic roles of the argument in agentive passives clauses. It is aimed at identifying

the different types of passive clauses as well as the argument structure of passive

clauses in novels. The data of this study was obtained from five novels: Pinocchio's

travels, Charlotte's web, A Wrinkle in Time, Peter Pan and Wendy, and Beyond the
 10

Kingdoms. The types of agentive passives found in five novels are agentive passives

with expressed agent and agentive passives without expressed agent, according to the

analysis. In addition, the agentive passives without expressed agent are the dominant

types used in four novels; however, only one novel, Pinocchio's Adventures, uses

both types of agentive passives equally. The subject, object, oblique, and adjunct

grammatical relations present in the agentive passives sentence, on the other hand, are

subject, object, oblique, and adjunct. Furthermore, the data contains all of the

semantic role labels. This proposal is relevant in term argument structure due to the

same theory was applied.

7.2 Concepts

There are some terms related to this study and they must be necessary due to

understanding required when analyzing the data. As subcategorization or argument

structure is related to grammatical relation and semantic role, this term will be

involved within the concepts. The other terms those will be defined in this sub

chapter involves grammatical relation and semantic role.

7.2.1 Argument Structure

Mateu (2014: 24), with a syntactic notion, stated that argument structure is a

hierarchical representation of the arguments required by the predicate determining

how they are expressed in the syntax. In other word, syntax motivates how the

argument is structured, and it also represents the number and type of the argument

required that deals with its grammatical relation. Besides that, Mateu (2014: 24) also

defined argument structure as a semantic notion, that argument structure is a

 11

representation of the central participants in the eventuality (event or state) expressed

by the predicate. Thus, the argument structure will deal with the term of semantic or

thematic role.

According to Kroeger (2005: 53), the individuals (or participants) of whom

the property or relationship is claimed to be true are called arguments. When a

sentence or a clause consists of a single subject and single predicate, it is categorized

as simple sentence/ clause. Accordingly, Kroeger (2004: 7) also stated that argument

structure of a predicate is a representation of the number and type of arguments

associated with a predicate. Based on that, it is possible to conclude that different

predicate may require different number of arguments.

7.2.2 Semantic Role

In relation to the argument, which is defined as participant of an event, Kroger

stated (2005: 54) that it is helpful to classify arguments into broad semantic

categories according to the kind of role they play in the situations described by their

predicates, and the same idea he proposed (2004: 9) was that the approach which will

be adopted is to assign participants to broad semantic or conceptual categories

according to the role they play in the described event or situation. In other word, the

semantic role of an argument will keep the proposition of a sentence or messages

conveyed in a sentence.

7.2.3 Grammatical Relation

According to Kroeger (2005: 62) arguments must be assigned a grammatical

relation within the clause. The grammatical relation of an argument, which is

 12

determined on the basis of morphological and syntactic properties, is not the same as

its semantic role, which is determined by the meaning of the verb. It should be

determined based on its grammatical properties and order.

7.2.4 Active and Passive Sentence

Huddleston and Pullum (2005: 26) stated that it is allowed to present

information in various ways. The terms active and passive were mentioned related to

how the information is packaged. The terms active and passive reflect the fact that in

clauses describing an action the subject of the active version denotes the active

participant, the performer of the action, while the subject of the passive version

denotes the passive participant, the undergoer of the action. In addition, extra element

be verb is required while constructing a passive sentence/clause. However, this study

will be only concerned on the active clauses.

7.3 Theoretical Framework

In analyzing the data and answering the problems of the study, theory is

necessary which will become the framework of the analysis. Theory of Kroger will be

used in answering the problems of the study; the theory will involve understanding

regarding grammatical relation and semantic role.

7.3.1 Argument Structure

Argument is a participant of an event or property, and the argument structure

provides information about the number of argument and its type. Kroger (2005: 62)

defined arguments as elements which are “selected” by the verb. Arguments are

required or permitted by certain predicates. In other words, arguments can be

 13

obligatory for certain verbs. In addition, it is also important to understand semantic

roles, grammatical relations, and other elements those are probably found within

clause and sentence.

7.3.1.1 Semantic Roles

Semantic role deals with meaning conveyed. Semantic role of an argument

presents what role they play in the particular event or situation. Some terms are used

differently by some linguists, and same labels can be also used in different ways. It is

actually depending on views how they describe the terms. However, the following

semantic roles proposed by Kroger (2005: 54) will be the terms assumed as semantic

roles:

a. agent: causer or initiator of events

b. experiencer: animate entity which perceives a stimulus or registers a

particular mental or emotional process or state

c. recipient: animate entity which receives or acquires something

d. beneficiary: entity (usually animate) for whose benefit an action is

performed

e. instrument: inanimate entity used by an agent to perform some action

f. theme: entity which undergoes a change of location or possession, or

whose location is being specified

g. patient: entity which is acted upon, affected, or created; or of which a

state or change of state is predicated

 14

h. stimulus: object of perception, cognition, or emotion; entity which is

seen, heard, known, remembered, loved, hated, etc.

i. location: spatial reference point of the event (the source, goal, and path

roles are often considered to be sub-types of location)

1) source: the origin or beginning point of a motion

2) goal: the destination or end-point of a motion

3) path: the trajectory or pathway of a motion

j. accompaniment (or comitative): entity which accompanies or is

associated with the performance of an action

The terms above represent the semantic relation which a predicate can assign and

determine the meaning of a verb.

7.3.1.2 Grammatical Relation

Kroger (2005: 62) stated that arguments must be assigned a grammatical

relation within the clause. Moreover, argument is determined by the syntactic and

morphological properties. The elements of grammatical relation can be divided into

subject and object, and terms and oblique.

a. Subject and Object

Based on traditional grammar view, subject is adopted as the doer of an

action; on the other hand, an object is adopted as what or who undergoes the action.

That understanding probably does not meet what is regarded grammatical relation.

Grammatical relation expresses grammaticality, and semantic role deals with the
 15

meaning. Therefore, grammatical relations, subject and object, cannot be identified

based on what role it plays, doer or undergoer. These data will describe how

grammatical relation is determined by grammatical properties not by its semantic or

meaning.

2 (a) A dog bit John.

(b) John was bitten by a dog.

There are still those who define a subject as the doer of an action, while the object is

the person or thing affected by the doer. However, both examples have shown that a

subject is not always an agent, and an object is not always a patient. A dog in 2(a) is

the subject of the sentence and also the agent or one who initiates to do the action of

biting; in contrast, a dog in 2(b) is not the subject of the sentence, it is considered as

object of the preposition or oblique argument although the role it plays is still the

same. Miller (2002: 105) stated that there are assumptions that consider term like a

dog in 2(b) as logical subject since it denotes agent.

3 (a) The tiger hunts its prey at night

(b) Prey is hunted by the tigers at night

(c) This prey the tigers haunted

The tigers in 3(a) turns up inside the prepositional phrase by the tigers in 3(b). The

argument the tigers refers to agent in the situation described in either 3(a) or 3(b);

thus, it is assumed as logical subject. In accordance with different point of views and

this controversy, there are some understanding of subjects, grammatical subject,

logical subject, and psychological subject. Grammatical subject is what is assumed as

 16

subject in this study since the grammatical relation is determined by its grammatical

properties, while logical subject like what is assumed as agent is regarded as semantic

role. In the other hand, psychological subject is regarded as entity which is what a

speaker wishes to say. In sentence 3(a), the tigers is regarded as the psychological

subject, while the information is packaged in different way in 3(c), this prey becomes

the subject. In other word, the subject is determined by the information structure.

According to Kroger (2005: 56), here are the following properties of subject

in English:

a. Word order: In a basic English sentence, subject normally comes before

the verb, and object and other elements come after the verb.

b. Pronoun forms: Pronouns have special form when they appear in certain

position that indicates whether they are subject or object pronouns.

c. Agreement with verb: In the simple present tense, a morphological

marking, a suffix -s, is added to the verb when a third person subject is

singular. However, the number and person of the object or any other

element in the sentence does not give any effect to the form of the verb:

d. Content questions: If the subject is replaced by a question word (who or

what), the rest of the sentence remains unchanged. However, if the object

is replaced by a question word, there must be an auxiliary before the

subject.
 17

e. Tag questions: A tag question is used to seek confirmation of a statement.

It always contains a pronoun which refers back to the subject, and never

to any other element in the sentence.

Supporting these criteria, Miller (2002: 93) explained some properties that become

the criteria of grammatical subject.

a. Syntactic properties:

 control of reflexives

 control of all and both floating

 functioning as pivot in infinitives and coordinate constructions

b. Morpho-syntactic properties:

 being involved in person and number links with the finite verb

 being in the nominative case.

Subject and object in an English sentence can be identified based on its grammatical

properties. In addition, subject or object cannot be identified in the basis of semantic

or thematic roles or information structure.

b. Terms and Oblique Argument

According to Kroger (2005: 57), subjects and objects are often referred to as

terms, or direct arguments, while arguments which are not subjects or objects are

called indirect or oblique arguments. Based on that understanding, we may conclude

that subject and object have closer relationship comparing to oblique. In addition,

oblique is marked or preceded by a preposition, while subject and object appear in

bare noun phrase without being preceded by a preposition. These terms will occur
 18

when identifying the grammatical relation of an argument, and they are represented in

abbreviation, SUBJ, OBJ, and OBL that refer to subject, object and oblique argument.

c. Adjunct and Argument

According to Kroger (2005: 58), arguments are the participants which must be

involved because of the very nature of the relation or activity named by the predicate,

and without which the clause cannot express a “complete thought”. However,

speakers might also put elements which are not really required by the predicate to

make the flow of the story understood by the hearer(s) including time and place the

event takes and the way of an action is done. In other word, Kroger (2005: 58)

defined that elements which are not closely related to the meaning of the predicate

but which are important to help the hearer understand the flow of the story are called

adjunct.

As described not really required by the predicate, an adjunct is not obligatory

or always optional, while argument is obligatory. Besides that, an argument is

bounded by the semantic role that is assigned by its predicate; therefore, certain

predicate requires certain argument(s). In contrast, adjunct is semantically

independent, and this is the reason why an adjunct may be freely added while

argument is depended on the verb, and in addition, oblique is also obligatory as we

can find also in PP that consists obligatory oblique argument.

d. Indirect Object and Secondary Object

In traditional grammar, it is probably confusing to identify these two terms,

direct and indirect object since it can appear in two position or have grammatical
 19

difference. As previously mentioned, the grammatical relation is determined based on

grammatical properties, not semantic role of the object. However, direct and indirect

object are distinguished based on their meaning in traditional grammar. Therefore, it

will have different point of view in this approach that the grammatical relation is

motivated by grammatical properties. According to Kroger (2005: 61), grammatical

relations must be identified on the basis of grammatical properties, not semantic

roles.

Finding a verb consisting of two NPs object or ditransitive carries two terms

of object, primary or direct object (OBJ), the first object appears after the verb, and

secondary or indirect object (OBJ2) that appears after the primary object. However,

people might be confused in determining OBJ2 or OBL since in traditional grammar,

the grammatical relation of both might be the same. As described, the difference is

that an OBL is marked by a preposition.

There are two basic classes of grammatical relation, terms and oblique. Terms

(i.e. SUBJ, OBJ, OBJ2) play an active role in a wide variety of syntactic
 20

constructions, while obliques are relatively inert. Those clausal elements are

summarized in the diagram above by Kroeger (2005: 62).

Argument structure has the elements of grammatical relation and semantic

role, and how to determine and the explanation of the elements have been clear. In

representing the argument structure, those elements are associated within a

subcategorization. Argument structure represents the verb and its terms or arguments,

and they are mapped into their grammatical relations. In order to associate the

semantic roles, each term or argument is also mapped into the semantic role.

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