Charles Fillmore's gramatical cases

EDITH CAVAZOS

KARLA LEAL

JOCELYN RODRÍGUEZ

About Charles Fillmore:

Charles J. Fillmore (born 1929) is an American

linguist, and an Emeritus Professor of Linguistics

at the University of California, Berkeley. He

received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the

University of Michigan in 1961.

Dr. Fillmore has been extremely influential in the

areas of syntax and lexical semantics. He is

especially influential on analyses of the

relation between word meaning and

syntactic patterns.

About Charles Fillmore:

He was a proponent of Noam Chomsky's

theory of generative grammar during its

earliest transformational grammar phase.

In 1963, his seminal article The position of

embedding transformations in a Grammar

introduced the transformational cycle,

which has been a foundational insight for

theories of syntax since that time. 

Grammatical Cases

Grammar case: A form of grammar in which

the structure of sentences is analyzed in

terms of semantic case relationships.

Associated with each verb sense is a set of

cases. Some of the cases are obligatory and

others are optional. A case is obligatory if the

sentence would be ungrammatical if it were

omitted. For example, John gave the book is

ungrammatical.

Grammatical cases:

The theory has been applied in Ph. D dissertations to English, to

teaching English as a foreign language and to child language

acquisition.

Fillmore’s paper is described as ‘a universal underlying set of case-

like relation that play role in determining syntactic and semantic

relations in languages’

Own approach as one based upon two principles:

1. the syntax

2. covert categories

Grammatical cases

By ‘centrality of syntax’ Fillmore means an approach which Works

downward from the morphological form; categories’. Fillmore is

referring to the meaning use of traditional case categories.

Semantic formation rules. the Deep structures generated by

the 1968 case grammar model characterized by the following

features:1. the sentences is initially separated into a proposition and a modality

2. The proposition consists of a verb and a series of cases ordered from right-to-left

3. prepositions or case markers occur in the Deep structure.

Rules:

The sentence (S) consists of a proposition (P) and a modality (M)

Proposition is ‘a tenseless set of relationships involving verbs and

nouns’

Modality ‘includes such modalities on the sentence –as-a-whole as

negation, tense, mood, and aspect’

Rule 1: S M + P

Rules:

The proposition (P) consists of a central verb (V) and a series of case-

marked noun phrases (C). The verb is placed in the leftmost position and

associated cases are listed in a right-to-left order with the most probable

subject choice to the far right in the Deep structure. According to Fillmore at

least one case category must be chosen, and no case category appears

more tan once’

Rule 2: P V + C + C

Rules:

Each case- marked noun phrase (C) consists of a case marker (K) and a

noun phrase (NP) with the case marker preceding the noun phrase in

Deep structure. The case marker is a universal element of language

which may be realized a preposition, postposition, or case affix.

Rule 3: C K + NP

In the generation of the base structure for sentence these three rules are

applied in order. One or more concrete cases, such as Agent, Object,

Instrumental, are substitute for the case categories in rule 2. Concrete case

markers proper to these cases are enters under the case marker (K) in rule 3.

Rule 1: S M + P

Rule 2: P V + C + C

Rule 3: C K + NP

Example:

Each case occurs in the Deep structure

with its case marker and a noun phrase.

In English the case markers are

proposition. The case marker for Agent is

by, for instrument is with, and for object

is (/). When the phrase structure rules are

applied the lexical verb is listed under the

V node and tense is entered under the

modality constituent. The cases are listed

right-to-left with their case markers.

Case system

Case grammars have a case system which consists of (1) a small number of cases, (2) which are sufficient for the classification of the verbs in a language, and (3) which have cross language validity (Fillmore 1975:7).

These cases are arranged according to a subject choice hierarchy.

Case system These seven cases below constitute the essential case

system of the 1968 model.

1. Agentive (A) The Agentive case is 'the case of the (typically animate) perceived instigator of the

action identified bye the verb. The Agentive is listed as typically animate in order to include the possibility of considering nouns like robot' and 'nation' as Agents. The Agentive case is marked with the preposition by, as in:

John/broke/the window. A=S

A V O

The window/was broken/by John. A=PP

O V A

Case system 2. Instrumental. The Instrumental case is 'the case of the inanimate force or

object casually involved in the state or action identified by the verb. The Instrumental case may occur as the subject of the verb, as the direct object of the verb 'use', and also in prepositional phrases. The typical case marking for the Instrument case is the preposition 'by' if there is no Agent present in the structure and is the preposition 'with' if there is an Agent present, as in:

The hammer/broke/the window. I=S

I V O

John/used/a hammer. I=DO

A V I

The window/was broken/with a hammer. I=PP

O V I

The window/was broken/by the storm. I=PP

O V I

Case system 3. Dative. The Dative case is 'the case of the (animate) being affected by the

state or action identified by the verb. The Dative case may occur as the subject, direct object, or indirect object of non-action verbs; it may also occur as the indirect object of state or action verbs but is not simply an indirect object. The Dative case is typically marked with the preposition 'to' as in:

John/believed/the story. D=S

D V O

The book/was boring/to John. D=IO

O V D

The movie/pleased/John. D=DO

O V D

John/gave/the book/to Mary. D=IO

A V O D

Case system 4. Objective. The Objective case is 'the semantically most neutral case, the case of

anything representable by a noun whose role in the action or state identified by the verb is identified by the semantic interpretation of the verb itself. The objective case may occur as either subject or object with non-action verbs and as the direct object of action verbs. Fillmore adds that sentences may be embedded only under the O case as in:

The story/is true. O=S

O V

John/liked/the movie. O=DO

D V O

Mary/opened/the door. O=DO

A V O

We/persuaded/John/he could win. O=Sent

A V D O=S

Case system 5. Factitive. The factitive case is “the case of the object or being resulting from the

state or action identified by the verb or, or understood as part of the meaning of the verb”. The Factitive case is used to distinguish the EFFECT OBJECT, which does not exist prior to the verbal action, from the AFFECTED OBJECT, which preexists and is acted upon. The Factitive is also used for cognate object constructions. Since this case may never occur as subject it is not listed as part of the subject choice hierarchy. Case marking for the Factitive case is 0, as in sentences:

John / built. F= Effected O

A V

Mary / make / a dream. F= Cognate O

Case system 6. Locative. The locative case is “the case which identifies the place or spatial

orientation of the state or action identified by the object. Locative includes both stative and directional locatives when the locational and directional elements do not contrast” Locative prepositions are those choices occasionally dictated by the character of the verb itself. The stative prepositions at, in, occur with state verbs; the directional prepositions to, into/ out of occur with the motion verbs.

The toys / are / in the box L=PP

O V L

John/ sprayed / the wall / with paint L=DO

D V L O

Case system 7. Comitative. This case is not defined. From the examples given it seems to be a

case used to express accompaniment. The propositional is with. This case may become the subject of the verb have as in sentences.

The childen / are / with Mary C=PP

O V C

Mary / has her children / with her C=S

C V C-copy

Also…

In the 1980s Fillmore became increasingly

interested in synergies between lexical

semantic theory and lexicography; he and

Sue Atkins began writing about the

"dictionary of the future", in which every

word would be linked to corpus examples.

This culminated in 1997 in his founding of

the FrameNet project at the International

Computer Science Institute in Berkeley

FrameNet

FrameNet data is widely used in

computational linguistics, natural

language processing, and artificial

intelligence, and there are now parallel

projects to create FrameNets for many

other languages, including Spanish,

German, Japanese, Portuguese, Italian,

and Chinese.

Bibliography

http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/icsi/blog/chuck-fillmore-dies-at-84

http://www-rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/305_html/Understanding/CaseGram1.html

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com

http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=S_lRAXSpymkC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=case+grammar+by+charles+fillmore&source=bl&ots=CHGcvfPVLN&sig=8ikSYkSCCccRrcU8nWIuLs4f0xI&hl=es-419&sa=X&ei=ZRt4U93CO4ehogT83IC4Bw&ved=0CEIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=case%20grammar%20by%20charles%20fillmore&f=false