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<body><div>Dear Christian,<br/>
I have long thought that we need modalized versions of semantic roles. A "Needer" is a modalized Possessor -- someone who in an ideal world would be a Possessor (of something). And obviously, predicates can encode more than one role. So in addition to being a modalized Possessor you can be an a (negatively affected) Experiencer. I agree that semantic roles are ill-defined, but I do not think that they are less clearly defined than any of the other terms we linguists use on a daily basis.<br/>
<br/>
'Need' is sometimes encoded with the same verb as 'want'. 'Want' also encodes modalized possession. I would say that a Needer is a deontic Possessor while a Wanter is a bouletic possessor.<br/>
<br/>
Best,<br/>
Volker<br/>
<br/>
<font color="#888888"><font color="#888888">Sent from </font><font color="#888888"><a href="https://goo.gl/ODgwBb">MailDroid</a></font></font><br/><br/>-----Original Message-----<br/>From: Christian Lehmann <christian.lehmann@uni-erfurt.de><br/>To: lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org<br/>Sent: Fri, 01 Jul 2022 10:42<br/>Subject: [Lingtyp] semantic role of participant that needs something<br/><br/></div>
For a start, I am ready to agree that Fillmorean semantic roles are
a bit outdated. Still, some of them, like recipient, experiencer or
possessor, may be met in publications to this day. So this question
is directed to those of you who think that under suitable
conditions, it makes sense to speak of semantic roles (or whatever
you prefer to name them).<br>
<br>
What is the role of the participant that needs something? On the one
hand, Latin <i>carere</i> and <i>egere</i> mean 'to not have'.
This would seem to involve a possessor. On the other hand, Cabecar <i>kiana̱</i>
means 'be wanted' and <i>shë́na̱</i> means ‘be missed’. This would
seen to involve an experiencer (a pretty ill-defined role, anyway).<br>
<br>
Such evidence from descriptive linguistics may imply that the
presupposition of my question, viz. that there is a
language-independent notion of 'need', is not fulfilled. This would
be a pity, as it would render a comparative investigation of the
kind 'how is the notion of "X needs Y" coded cross-linguistically'
(in the spirit, e.g., of the Leipzig valency database) more
complicated or even - from a theoretical point of view - impossible.<br>
<br>
Grateful for any helpful suggestions,<br>
Christian<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<p style="font-size:90%">Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann<br>
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