1. The Case for Case Reopened ‘Agents and Agency Revisited’
Written by David Wilkins & Van Valin
Presented by Jinho Choi

2. Introduction Agent vs. Effector Thematic relation Outline
Before: Agent = Central & Primary notion
Here: Effector = Dynamic participant doing something in an event
Thematic relation
Roles: Agent(A), Force(F), and Instrument(I)
Goals: 1) To show the basic of the effector relation(ER)
2) To show how (A), (F), and (I) interpretations derive from ER
Outline
Section 2: Agents, Agency, and semantic roles
Section 3: Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin)
Section 4: Agents, Effectors, Forces, and Instruments

3. Fillmore and Case Grammar
The Case for Case
Goal: Syntactical relations(subject)  Semantical relations(agent)
Why: Semantical relations are more cross-linguistic
What is 'Case‘?
Relationship between a verb(predicate) and its associated NP(arguments)
Roles: Agentive(A), Instrumental(I), and Objective(O)
Discrete, Independent, etc.
Obligatory vs. Optional: Agentive > Instrumental > Objective
Advantage vs. Flaws
Advantage: Case roles assigned to NPs remains the same
Flaws: No attention to detailing the nature of the semantics representations

4. Lyons and Ravin Lyons Ravin
Agent: animacy, intention, responsibility, and internal energy-source
Agentive situations: Affect, Produce(Cause, effect), Produce(Agent, effect)
Assumption: Languages are designed to handle the paradigm instances  particular morphemes handle paradigm instances of agency
Ravin
Before: Agent = animacy + causation + action
Argument: A verb 'put' does not necessarily require animacy
Question: Can thematic roles be viewed as a function of the interaction of semantic level, syntactic level, and pragmatic level

5. Dowty and Talmy Dowty Talmy
Theory: All roles are event-dependent in meaning (argument selection)
Lexical entailments: Roles cannot be treated as discrete categories  Proto-roles: proto-agent, proto-patient
Advantage: 1) Not any less clear than the traditional ones ) More straightforwardly relevant to human life
Talmy
Two events: causing event vs. caused event
Agent: An entity whose act initiates an intended causal sequence leading to an intended final event
Ex) The ball broke the window. The ball  Sailing into window  The window broke

6. Langacker, Jackendoff, and Delancey
Roles archetypes: Agent, Instrument, Patient/Mover/Experiencer
Flow of energy: Agent > Instrument > Patinet/Mover/Experiencer
Jackendoff
Thematic relations: Derived from decompositional representations of verbs
Agent: Motion tier [CAUSE(w), GO(x,y,z)], Action tier AFF(actor, patient)
[+vol]Actor vs. [-vol]Actor
Delancey
Agent: A clausal-level phenomenon that is dependent on both verb structure and inherent semantic properties of NP

7. Things in common What is ‘Agent’?
A crucial notion to explain grammatical phenomena
Prototypically nominal properties (animacy and volition) + Prototypically event properties (activity and causation)
Primary interest: Verb/event-structure (not NP)
Opposition of ‘Patient’

8. Role and Reference Grammar(RRG)
Case Grammar vs. RRG
Similarity: Mapping between semantic and syntax
Difference: Discourse-pragmatics  crucial in RRG
Semantic Macroroles
Case roles: Derived from argument positions in lexical rep. of verbs
DO: abstract operator, optional ex) The girl saw the picture vs. The girl looked at the picture
Problems
Agency depends entirely on the verb  sometimes on NP
Different lexical representation for the same verb
Agent becomes the secondary interpretation added to others

9. Agent as a pragmatic implicature
Another view of 'Agent‘
Agent is often not a property of the semantic structure of the predicate.
Pragmatic principle: You may interpret effectors and effector-themes, which are human as agents.
Examples to show that the principle breaks down (p15)
DO vs. State/Activity
Factors to determine 'Agent‘
Lexical semantic properties of the verb: activity > achievement > state
Inherent lexical content of the NP argument
Grammatical construction in which the verb and NP co-occur

10. Agent as a pragmatic implicature (continue)
Inherent lexical content of the NP argument
Volition: Non-conscious of wills
Intention: Conscious of will + ability to plan
Rationality: Intention + knowledgeable about what the result
Ex) The looter broke the window  The looter rationally broke the window The baby broke the window  The baby accidentally broke the window.
Grammatical constructions
Depends on effector-arguments
Causative const.: Causee may or may not be interpreted as an agent
Purposive const.: Main subject intends for the situation  forces an agent interpretation

11. The derivation of instrument and force from effector
Focus
Before: How agent derives from effector for most verbs
Here: The nature of force and instrument
Roles redefined
Agent: animate, effector
Force: inanimate(motive), effector, instigator
Instrument: inanimate(non-motive), effector, non-instigator
Structure representation
[[do(instigator)] CAUSE[do(effector, action)]] CAUSE[BECOME pred(change of state)]

12. Case study: 'open' John/The wind/The key opened the door.
The key is opening the door.
John/The wind opens the door.
Pat and Robin/The wind and the rain/The key and the combination opened the door.
Pat and the wind opened the door.
The key and the wind opened the door.
Pat and the key opened the door.
John opened the door by throwing the key.
Animate, self-motive(internal energy), or function
Different meanings of ‘open’

13. Concluding remarks Agent: not a basic or fundamental semantic role
Solution: using ‘Effector’ instead
Agent is still important
Effector-arguments are very often to be human  Definition of Agent
Force and Instrument: 'less good' members