Thematic roles, focus and the representation of events

TLDR

Two experiments examined how thematic roles influence focus, and a third explored whether role preferences reflect a focus on event consequences. The study aimed to test whether thematic role preferences arise from a focus on event consequences. The authors used sentence continuation tasks with fragments containing two antecedents in different thematic roles, varying the final connective (so vs because) to probe focus effects. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed a persistent preference for a specific thematic role independent of pronoun use or sentence position, interpreted as a focus on event consequences; Experiment 3 confirmed this by showing the preference held with the connective so but was altered by because, supporting the role‑focus hypothesis and linking it to event structure and thematic hierarchies.

Abstract

Abstract Two experiments investigated the focusing properties of thematic roles, while a third experiment investigated the view that thematic role preferences reflect a focusing on the consequences of the represented event. Sentence continuation tasks were used in which subjects wrote continuations to sentence fragments containing two antecedents, each occupying a different thematic role. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed a preference for referring to a particular thematic role regardless of the presence or absence of a pronoun at the start of the continuation and regardless of whether the continuation was part of a different sentence from the one containing the antecedents (Experiment 1) or part of the same sentence (Experiment 2). These preferences were interpreted as being due to a focus on the consequences of the represented event in a mental model of the sentence. Experiment 3 tested this interpretation by using sentence fragments that ended in so (a connective that reinforces the focus on consequences) or because (a connective that conflicts with the focus on consequences). The results confirmed the interpretation: the observed preferences were maintained with so but modified by because The results are discussed in terms of the structure of represented events, top-down and bottom-up processes, and thematic hierarchies. The first mention effect in pronoun comprehension is also discussed.