A study of the subjecthood and the interpretations of arguments introduced by functional categories

在人类语言中作为主语或宾语出现的名词短语被解释为被赋予特定的角色，如施事或受事(语义角色)，涉及它们如何参与句子的谓词所描述的事件。每个名词短语所承担的特定语义角色取决于名词短语在句子的短语结构中出现的位置。人们认为，人类语言中名词短语的语义角色分配有一个一般规则。本研究通过对英语和日语中的心理态度副词和无限目的从句的考察，揭示了名词短语的主观性和意向性之间的关系。

Noun phrases occurring as subjects or objects in human languages are interpreted by being assigned a certain role such as agent or patient (semantic role) concerning how they are involved in the event described by the predicate of the sentence. The particular semantic role each noun phrase bears is determined by where the noun phrase appears in phrase structure of the sentence. It is claimed that there is a general rule governing the assignement of semantic roles to noun phrases in human languages. The present reasearch has brought to light a relation between the subjecthood and the volitionality of noun phrases through an investigation into mental-attitude adverbs and infinitival purpose clauses in English and Japanese.