SOME RE~h~RXS ON CASE RELATIONS 
JGrgen Kunze 
Zentrallnstltut fGr Sprachwissenschaft 
Akademle der Wissensch~ften der DDR 
Prenzlauer Promenade 149-152 
Berlin 
DDR-1100 
ABSTRACT 
The topic of the paper is the problem 
how to define case relations by semantic 
predicates. A general principle is out- 
lined, which renders it possible to 
"calculate" case relations for a given 
representation of a (verb-)sememe by 
means of expressions. This principle is 
based on an assignment of case relations 
to primitive predicates and modification 
rules for nested expressions. Contrary 
to the traditional case grammar it turns 
out ~ha~ one needs mixed case relations, 
especially for two reasons: Arguments 
occur at "too different" places in an 
expression or arguments ~iave combined 
case relations. The consequence is that 
case relations don't form a set of iso- 
lated elements but a structured system. 
I. Introduction 
The paper is not intended for defending 
case relations in general. I want to 
s~e~ch only some problems connected with 
the definition of case relations ~ud will 
demonstrate consequences, which seem 
partly a oit "unconventional". 
I will not enter into the terminolo- 
gical discussion on deep cases, case 
relations etc. and subsume all these 
variants under the label "case relation". 
This is justified by the obvious fact 
that there are more proposals and systems 
than authors. So one will not overcome 
this chaos by neat terminological distinc- 
tions. It is rather typical for publica- 
tions on deep cases that proposals are 
presented without sufficient motivation 
or justification (e. g. Nilsen 1973). 
It has turned out tha~ in the matter 
of case relations as a field of linguis- 
tic and fundamental research intuition 
and language competence cannot show the 
right way how to solve the problems of 
defining them. This is my first conclu- 
sion from the general scene. Without 
doubt it is inevitable to work out some 
principles on the basis of which case 
relations may be defined. This would 
enable us 
- to discuss a rather "clear" object 
(some principles instead of tens (or 
hundreds) of proposals), 
- to evaluate and compare existing pro- 
posals, 
- to connect case relations with other 
essential notions. 
Quite another question is "What are case 
relations good for?". One cannot ignore 
the fact that a lot of serious objections 
against case relations have been advanced, 
covering a whole range from "they are 
redundant" till "the swamp of lacking 
plausible (or even formal) definitions" 
resulting in the conclusion that case 
relations are useless especially for 
computational linguistics (Mellema 1974, 
Luckhardt 1985). On the other hand many 
authors are advocates pro case relations, 
even in MT (e. g. Nagao 1986, Somers 
1986). Here the character of case rela- 
tions as a link (or pivot) is stressed - 
between surface and deep level or between 
nguages. For sucA situations one can 
cept the use of case relations without 
exact definitions having an experimental 
system as a touchstone. 
Case rela~ion~ are considered here as 
names or labels of arguments in semantic ~ 
redicates used for the description of 
verb-)sememes. This is only one side of 
the coin! The second important aspect are 
the means by which deep cases are ex- 
pressed at the surface (grammatical cases, 
prepositions, linear order, ...). They 
have to be taken into account as well, 
and only both aspects together will yield 
an adequate picture. 
2. Case relations and semantic predicates 
One possibility to grasp the whole 
problem seems to be the definition of 
case relations on the basis of semantic 
predicates. Sememes (of vero-lexemes) are 
represented by expressions containing 
primitive semantic predicates. The fol- 
lowing expression may be assigned to a 
verb like "to convey": (a conveys b from 
c to d) 
(1) MOVE-ACTION(a,b,c,d) 
=ACAUSE(a,CHANGE-POSITION(b,c,d)) 
(cf. Allen 1984). I will not discuss the 
question whether ACAUSE (= "agent caus- 
ation") and CH~GE-POSITTON are indeed 
302 
primitive predicates. I consider them 
here as that. Furthermore one may discuss 
whether (5) sufficiently describes the 
meaning of "to convey". 
The idea of extracting case relations 
from representations lige (1) can be 
bases on the following principles: 
(A) For each primitlve predicate P there 
is an assignment of exactly one case 
relation to every argument place~: 
zi(P) = r~ (i-th argument of P h~s 
case relation ri) 
(B) There are modification rules for case 
relations which render it possible to 
"calculate" the case relations for 
nested expressions. 
(A) means e. g. that for a primitive pre- 
dicate like CHANGE-POSITION w know the 
case relations of the argument places b, 
c and d: 
(2) zi(C~JdIGE-POSITION ) = r i for 1 ~ i ~ 3 
In this sense one can state without doubt 
(3) Zl(ACAUSE) = agent 
(~) z3(CHANGE-POSTTION) = goal 
(B) may be interpreted in the following 
way: If we know 
- MOVE-ACtION has the form given in (1), 
- the value of z2(ACAUSE), 
- second place of ACAUSE is filled in by 
CHA2~E-POSITION, 
- the value of Zl(CHANGE-POSITION), 
then we know 
- the value of z2(EOVE-ACTION ), i. e. the 
case relation of b in the whole expres- 
sion (1). 
Formally this may be expressed by a 
four-place "modification mapping" m: 
(5) zg(MOVE-ACTION) = 
m~ACAUSE, z2(ACAUSE), CHANGE-POSIT!ON, 
z I (CHANGE-POSITION) ) 
One may speculate whether all four argu- 
ments are indeed necessary, they are 
surely no~. A similar idea is presented 
in Thiel 1982 (p. 84 ff.), where the 
mechanism of modification is applied, 
tOO. 
A general scheme for (B) is the 
following: Assume one has 
(6) 
.., s(...,x,...),...) 
where x is the j-th argument in Q, 
S(...) the k-th argument in R and x the 
1-th argument in S. Then zg(Q) is a 
function of R, Zk(R), S an~ Zl(S ). Thiel's 
proposal, namely zj(Q) = m(R, Zl(S)), 
would cause some dlfficulties, if R is a 
many place predicate and there are in R 
arguments S' and S" with z I, (S')=Zl,, (S") 
(cf. the FEED-example below). Thiel him- 
self excludes this case explicitely. 
The principles (A) and (B) form a re- 
cursive scheme: (A) provides the results 
for certain predicates, (B) renders it ~ 
ossible to determine the results for 
verb-)sememes in general. 
At arj rage one would get a nice for- 
malism for calculating case frames if (A) 
and (B) are fulfilled. Unfortunately, 
there are some additional problems I will 
deal with below. But at first T take an 
example : 
(7) SET(a, b, c) 
= ACAUSE( a, BECOI~\[E ( SIT( b, c) ) ) 
(8) z2(SIT)= locative 
By a simplification of the general 
scheme (four-place function m as in (5)) 
to the special variant one would obtain 
for (7-8): 
(9) z~(S~.T) 
= ~m(A CAUSE, m( BECO},~, 1 o cati re) ) = m(ACAUSE,dlrective) = directive 
There are arguments for the assumotion 
that BECOI~ (and not ACAUSE) modifies 
locative to dieective (or goal): The 
description of "to get to a place" 
contains the expression 
(10) BEC01~(BE(b,c)) (as in (7)) 
Here one has the s~ae modification of 
locative to directive. This is in ac- 
cordance with Thiel 1982. 
Instead of (7) one coulc take another 
expression, e. g. by using the predicate 
ECAUSE (event causation) with the inter- 
pretation that "an activity of a causes 
BECO~ (S! T( b, c ) )" : 
(lq) SE~(a,b,c) 
= ECAUSE(ACT(a), BECOICE(SIT(b, c))) 
Here the application of (A) and (B) is 
not quite the same, one has here instead 
of 
(12) Zl(SET ) = Zl(ACAUSE ) for (7) 
a modification 
(13) zI(SET) = m(ECAUSE, z~(ACT)) 
m(ECAUSE, a~entiv) 
= "causator" ? 
These simple examples illustrate some 
connections between the formal defini- 
tion of case relatior.s and semantic 
predicates. 
3. Ex~pected complications 
Now ! turn so some :~upleasant ques- 
tions that depress a bit the hope in 
this elega~ut solution. But they are 
disagreeable only if one 
303 
- maintains the principle "one instance ~ 
er simple clause" for case relations 
cf. Fillmore 1968, Starosta 1981) and 
- considers case relations as a rather 
small set without internal structure. 
For a verb li~e "to swim" in a sentence" 
like "a swims from b to c" it is reasona- 
ble to assume a representation 
(1@) SWIM(a) g CHANGE-POSITION(a,b,c) 
What wo ao if in this example (or another 
of the same type) one detects that 
(15) Zl(SWIM) @ Zl(CHANGE-POSITION)? 
Secondly, one needs new rules for h~dling 
an example like 
(16) ASCERTAIN(a,b) 
= ACAUSE(a,BECO~(KNOW(a,b))) 
where a appears twice and at two rather 
different places. One surely cannot assume 
that Zl(ACAUSE) is the same relation as 
(17) m( ACAUSE, m( BEC0~{E, z I (~NOW) ) ) 
if one makes the same simplification am 
for (7). Another question appears in 
(18) FEED( a, b, c) = ACAUSE( a, EAT( b, c) ) 
This time one has two agents (a and b). 
The next question is due to reflexive 
verbs. If we ta~e German examples, we 
have e. g. 
(19) Er w~scht sich $ Er w~scat ihn 
as in English, too (himself ¢ him). Here 
the case relation of "Er" should be a 
mixture between agent ~n~something like 
experiencer or patiens (cf. Thiel 1982, 
p. 10@ f.). The second components may 
not be left out because of the reflexive 
verbs proper in German as "sich ft\[rchten" 
(to be afraid, "sich sch~me~' (~o be 
ashamed). Here the appropriate case rela- 
tion is not agent: A "semantic paraphrase" 
for these verbs is "Etwas macht mich 
f~rchten" (Something makes me afraid) 
etc. In my opinion there is no sharp 
boundary oetween the two types of re- 
flexive verbs: Such a critical case is 
e. g. "sich aufregen" (to ge~ excited). 
The fifth question is connected with 
"plastered up" case relations. It does 
not make sense to discuss whether one has 
in (20) either the case relation instru- 
mental or locative (cf. Thiel 1982, 
p. 10@ f.): 
(20) I warmed ~he foot on the stove. 
The same applies for temporal and causal 
relations in other examples. 
@. Some conclusions 
From the questions and lacking answers 
one may draw some conclusions: 
!. If one defines case relations by 
means of semantic predicates as ex- 
plained above, one needs in addition at 
least one of these two things: 
- a two-place relation " ~ " within the 
set of case relations in order to com- 
pare them according to their "specl- 
ficness": For certain pairs of case 
relations rl,r 2 one has then "r I ~ rp" 
with the meaning "r I is equal to or - 
more specific than ro" (cf. the SWIM 
example). In this sense one may say 
that e. g. objective is "the semantical 
most neutral case" (Cook 1971), i. e. 
one could establish case relations that 
are more specific than the case rela- 
tion objective. 
- a two-place operation " @ " for mixing 
case relations: For certain pairs of 
case relations r~,r 2 there is a case 
relation r with ~ = r I • r 2 (cf. the 
example (20)). 
So the set of all case relations becomes 
a structured system: Every case relation 
stands no longer for itself alone. 
II. One cannot derive case relations from 
semantic predicates without presupposing 
a synonymy relation between sememes: If 
one assumes that uhe twJo sentences 
(21) John sells Jim a car. 
(22) Jim buys a car from John. 
are synonymous, i. e. 
(23) SELL(a,b,c) and 
(24) BUY(b,a,c) 
have the same representation, then the 
case relations have to be tae same: 
(25) Zl(S~) = z2(BUY) (of a) 
z2(SELL) Zl(BUY) (of b) 
If one admits that (21) and (22) are not 
synonymous one ma~, have different case 
relations. 
This aspect is in a sense inde- 
pendent of the approach proposed here: 
The same question may be put without 
reference to semantic predicates. One 
needs such a synonymy relation at any 
rate for case relations. Obviously the 
different intuitive use of the synonymy 
is one reason for the rather chaotic 
situation. 
I!T. A aiscussion of (23-2@) and (18) 
shows furthermore that a relation or 
operation mentioned in T. provides the 
means for a distinction of different 
agents as John and Jim in (21-22) or 
the two agents in (18): Tn the latter 
case b is an "influenced agent". This 
has to be expressed precisely by the 
modification rules. 
304 
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Address of the author: 
Prof. Dr. Jttrgen Kunze 
Z~ ft~r Sprachwissenschaft der AdW der DDR 
Prenzlauer Promenade I@9-152 
Berlin 
DDR-qlO0 
305 
