Subject Roles

The participants in events must occupy one of grammatical roles in the clause, and among these grammatical roles, the subject is the primary topic in a sentence. Therefore we focus on the subject and find that the roles of the subject in emotional event structures are varied.

(30) a. 聽到這件事，爸爸非常高興。

tingdao zhejian shi, papa feichang gaoxing hear-arrive this-CL affair, father very glad

‘On hearing this affair, Father is very glad. ’ b. 很多學生討厭英文。

henduo xuesheng taoyan yingwen many students dislike English

‘Many students dislike English. ’

(31) a. 這本書很有趣。

zheben shu hen youqu this-CL book interesting

‘This book is very interesting. ’ b. 他很無聊⁸。

ta hen wuliao he very boring

‘He is very boring.’

(32) a. 他激怒了老師。

ta jinu le laoshi he anger PERF teacher

‘He angered the teacher. ’ b. 這玩具吸引了小朋友。

zhe wanju xiyin le xiaopengyou

8 There are two readings of the sentence 他很無聊 Ta hen wuliao: ‘He is very bored.’ and ‘He is very boring.’ There is an Experiencer as the subject in the former reading, and a Stimulus as the subject in the latter one. They are analyzed in different frames.

this toy attract PERF children

‘This toy attracted children. ’

Verbs in (30) , are encoded as predicates with Experiencer (爸爸 baba ‘father’ and 學生 xuesheng ‘student’ ) as subject to profile an experiencer in an emotional state.

Contrarily, verbs in (31) are predicates with Stimulus (書 shu ‘book’ and 他 ta ‘he’) as subject to attribute potential properties of the stimulus to cause an emotional state in the Experiencer. In addition to Experiencer and Stimulus, there is an agnet-like subject role.

Liu (2009) proposed this type of subject as an Affecter. The emotional clause can take an Affecter (他 ta ‘he’ and 這玩具 pengyou ‘friends’) as the subject to attribute an emotional impact or effect on an Affectee, who undergoes the impact and then is provoked an emotional state. The affecter is mostly volitional or intentional like the subject in (32a), although there is also the affecter with a few or no volition, as what shown in (32b).

How can we tell the volitionality of the Affecter? Examples (33) may be evident illustrations.

(33) a. 他的話安慰了我。

ta de hua anwei le wo he DE words comfort I

‘His words comforted me. ’ b. 他安慰了我。

ta anwei le wo he comfort I

‘He comforted me.’

Examples above seems to be similar that the subject phrase 他 ta ‘he’ in (33b) can be regarded as an abbreviation form of another noun phrase 他的話 ta de hau ‘his words’ in (33a). What differentiates the two clauses and the subjects, however, is the volitional (or intentional) feature. When ( 33a) 他的話安慰了我(ta de hua anwei le wo

‘His words comforted me. ’) is uttered or wrote out, the speaker may just be comforted because of some words written in a book by someone or some words he uttered long time ago. In these two cases, these words did not ‘try to’ comfort the speaker. On the contrary, when a speaker said a clause like (33b), he or she was comforted ‘by’ someone and the person actually did an action to comfort the speaker. The volition or intention encoded in verbs can be tested by several ways.

(34) Means: a. 他用這句話來安慰我。

ta yong zhegou hau lai anwei wo he use this-CL words to comfort I

‘He used these words to comfort me. ’ b. *這句話用食物來安慰我。

zhegou hau yong shiwu lai anwei wo this-CL words use food to comfort I

‘These words comforted me with food. ’

(35) Attempt: a. 他試圖安慰我。

ta shizhe anwei wo he try comfort I

‘He tried to comfort me. ’ b. *這句話試圖安慰我。

zhegou hau shizhe anwei wo

this-CL words try comfort I

‘These words tried to comfort me. ’

(36) Intention: a. 他故意激怒我。

ta guyi jinu wo he purposely anger I

‘He angered me purposely. ’ b. *這句話故意激怒我。

zhegou hau guyi jinu wo

this-CL words purposely anger I

‘These words angered me purposely. ’

(37) Imperative: a. 安慰他一下。

anwei ta yixia

comfort he for-a-while

‘Comfort him.’

b. 不要安慰他。

buyao anwei ta do not comfort he

‘Don’t comfort him.’

The criteria (34) to (37) all present and distinguish the volitionality of verbs. Some previous studies also thought highly of the volition or intention feature. Huang (1974) mentioned that there are two interpretations of theme (or stimulus in our study). The theme may be an agent who does something and makes the Experiencer has some kind

Experiencer in certain emotion state. Additionally, Van Voorst (1992) divided psychological (emotion) verbs into four groups and treated intention as a criterion as well to divide emotion verbs into class II and class III, as noted in ( 38):

(38) Class I: From action verb to ps ych verb.

Class II: Psychological verbs with an intentional subject.

Class III: Psychological verbs with a non-intentional subject.

Class IV: Psychological verbs of the dislike-type.

To sum up, there are three different roles coded as the subject: E xperiencer, Stimulus, and Affecter. The subject role coded in an emotional event may be varied according to which participant role or frame element is focused on or emphasized in an event. In the study, the variant of subject roles also plays a significant role in categorizing emotion verbs.