TRANSITION AND TRANSFER PREDICATES

I. TRANSITION

Many of them express the going or coming from one place to another. These are
predicates of transition.

1. The bus goes from Greenville to S t r a t f o r d .

2. Carlo came to this country from I t a l y .

Others express the moving of something from one place to another.

3. Fenwick drives the bus from Greenville to S t r a t f o r d .

4.Jane rowed the boat from one side of the river to the other.

These are predicates of transfer. Transfer verbs are the causative equivalent of the
transition verbs above: Fenwick causes the bus to go…, Jane caused the boat to
move….
These are predicates of transfer. Transfer verbs are the causative equivalent of the
transition verbs above: Fenwick causes the bus to go…, Jane caused the boat to
move….

Transfer includes putting and removing:

4. Squirrels are stashing nuts in that oak tree.

5. Thieves stole some money from the cash box.

and giving and taking away.

6. Ronnie gave Rosie some flowers.
7. The accident deprived Alex of his livelihood.

Communicating something to someone through language is also a form of

transfer:

8. Mother told the children a story.

9. Agnes is writing her mother a letter.

there is a miscellaneous group of predicates with three or more arguments that are not
so easily classified: we introduce someone to another person, we suspect somebody of
something, and so on

Sentence 1 tells of the movement of an inanimate object from one

place, the source, to another place, the goal.

Sentence 2 is similar in role structure, except that the entity moving is

animate.

In English the source is most often indicated by from and the goal by to, as here,
and they occur in either order.
11a He emerged from the dark cellar into the bright sunlight.

11b He plunged from the bright sunlight into the dark cellar.

To is replaced by into to express the notion that the goal is not simply a location but an
area which contains. As these examples show, the containing area is not necessarily an
enclosed space—a speaker is free to treat any area as an enclosed space.
A sentence may express a Path, a place or area between the Source and Goal.

12

The path is indicated by a form that may follow one of several prepositions: via, by
way of, through, across or over. The theme or actor NP is subject of the sentence.
To generalize, sentences with transition verbs have this argument structure:

Source, goal and path are optional in sentences and may appear in any order
among themselves. But they are implicit in the meaning of transition verbs,
whereas other verbs of motion like shake, quiver, tremble and vibrate denote
movement that does not necessarily involve change of location.
Of all transition verbs move is the least marked, the one that lacks
a special focus. Go is probably a more common verb, but it carries
the semantic feature [away from speaker], contrasting with come
[toward speaker]. Common transition predicates are the following.

Unmarked: move Focus on

Goal:
 get [general]

come [goal is where speaker or addressee is or will be]

go [goal is away from speaker]

II. TRANSFER

17 Fenwick drives a bus from Greenville to Stratford by way of Compton.

The verb drive is a predicate of transition, and this sentence has a

causative meaning corresponding to Sentence 1: Fenwick causes the
bus to go from Greenville, etc., and of course he moves with the bus.
Compare the next sentence.

19

The role structure in 19 is similar to 18 but of course the King does not
move with the rebels. Thus two sorts of transfer verbs can be distinguished,
typified by drive (as used in 11a), in which the agent moves, and banish, in
which the agent does not move.

These are shown on the timescales below.

 Acts that change location of both Agent and Theme are the following:

Unmarked: move
Focus on Manner:

drive [object=vehicle and subject=driver; or

object=animal(s) and subject is behind the animal(s)]

convey [unmarked]

haul [transfer in vehicle suggested]

drag [subject moves object over a surface, object is inert]

Focus on Goal:

bring [goal is location of speaker, not necessarily at time of speaking] take [goal
is not location of speaker].

Focus on Aspect (involving some relation of time):

restore [object was previously at goal]

Acts that change location of theme only are expressed in the following verbs:

Focus on Goal:

push [object is moved away from original position of

agent] pull [object is moved toward agent]
Focus on Source:

expel [agent=person of authority in source]

evict [as above; source is dwelling, affected is a tenant]

Focus on Path:

throw [object moves through air]

lift [vertical movement upward]

raise [vertical movement upward or into upright position]

drop [vertical movement down; may be involuntary]

lower [as above; voluntary]

20 We spread a red carpet from the sidewalk to the door.

To spread something is to cause it to be simultaneously at Place X and Place Y, the

Source and the Goal.

21 The court restored the property to its lawful owner (from one who was
not the lawful owner).

To restore something is to cause it to be in the same place or possession at Time

Plus as it was at Time Minus and as it was not at Time Zero.
If there is no verb—only forms of be—for introduces the goal. In other words, the
preposition for acts as a sort of transfer predicates.

Predicates like the ones discussed above give information about a change of
ownership, a change from one status in which one entity, the source, possesses,
to another status in which a different entity, the goal, possesses. The change of
possession is accomplished in a short time, no matter how long the giving has
been planned or the reception has been awaited. When we discuss the movement
of some person or thing from one place to another, the time for transition and
path over which the movement takes place becomes important.
 III. CONCLUSION

The thematic structure, or role structure, of a predicate is clearly related

to its meaning, and predicates with similar meanings have similar thematic
structures. In this chapter we have examined predicates with a valency of three or
more. All such predicates describe the movement of some entity, concrete or
abstract. The entity from which the movement originates has the semantic
function of source and the entity which represents the end of movement has the
function of goal.

Predicates of transition have arguments in the roles of theme or actor,

source, goal and path, though the last three are not necessarily expressed in a
sentence. Predicates of transfer have the same argument roles plus an agent. Time
frames, including a time zero, a later time, and perhaps an earlier time, display the
difference between real transition and pseudo-transition and between transfer that
includes movement of the agent and transfer that does n o t .