Hi,
Can I please get some help on this?
Draw the trees for the following sentences (surface structure) and assign thematic roles. Be careful of movement!
a) What did John eat?
b) Mary said that John kicked the ball.
c) I met the woman who invented the blicket.
d) Who read the book that Mary wrote?
e) The colossal red dragon burned the lush green forest.
f) The lion chased the man into the cave.
g) I read the book in the attic.
h) The glorpish dax mepped the florpy blicket.
Sure! I can help you with that. To draw the trees for the given sentences and assign thematic roles, you would typically use a syntactic tree diagram or a parse tree. The steps to create the trees and assign thematic roles involve analyzing the sentence structure and identifying the syntactic categories (such as subjects, objects, verbs, etc.) as well as the thematic roles (such as agent, patient, experiencer, etc.).
Let's go through each sentence and break it down:
a) What did John eat?
To analyze this sentence, we need to identify the main components:
- The subject: John
- The verb: eat
- The object: What
Here is an example of a tree diagram for this sentence:
eat
/ \
John What
Thematic roles:
- John: Agent
- What: Patient
b) Mary said that John kicked the ball.
Components:
- The subject: Mary
- The verb: said
- The complement: that John kicked the ball
Tree diagram:
said
/ \
Mary Complement
/ \
that kicked
/ \
John ball
Thematic roles:
- Mary: Experiencer
- John: Agent
- Ball: Patient
c) I met the woman who invented the blicket.
Components:
- The subject: I
- The verb: met
- The object: the woman
- The relative clause: who invented the blicket
Tree diagram:
met
/ \
I object
|
the woman
|
who invented
/ \
the blicket
Thematic roles:
- I: Experiencer
- The woman: Patient
- The blicket: Theme
d) Who read the book that Mary wrote?
Components:
- The subject: Who
- The verb: read
- The object: the book
- The relative clause: that Mary wrote
Tree diagram:
read
/ \
Who object
|
the book
|
that wrote
/ \
Mary -ed
Thematic roles:
- Who: Experiencer
- The book: Patient
- Mary: Agent
e) The colossal red dragon burned the lush green forest.
Components:
- The subject: The colossal red dragon
- The verb: burned
- The object: the lush green forest
Tree diagram:
burned
/ \
the dragon object
/ \
colossal red
Thematic roles:
- The colossal red dragon: Experiencer
- The lush green forest: Patient
f) The lion chased the man into the cave.
Components:
- The subject: The lion
- The verb: chased
- The object: the man
- The prepositional phrase: into the cave
Tree diagram:
chased
/ \
The lion object
|
the man
|
into the cave
Thematic roles:
- The lion: Experiencer
- The man: Patient
- The cave: Goal
g) I read the book in the attic.
Components:
- The subject: I
- The verb: read
- The object: the book
- The prepositional phrase: in the attic
Tree diagram:
read
/ \
I object
|
the book
|
in the attic
Thematic roles:
- I: Experiencer
- The book: Patient
- The attic: Location
h) The glorpish dax mepped the florpy blicket.
This sentence seems to use made-up words, so it's difficult to assign specific thematic roles without more context or clarification about the meanings of the words.
I hope this helps you understand how to create tree diagrams for the given sentences and assign thematic roles!