Thematic Role

Thematic role is the Semantic relationship between a Predicate (e.g. a Verb ) and an Argument (e.g. the Noun Phrase s) of a Sentence . Thematic roles include:

Experiencer: receives sensory or emotional input (eg. The smell of lillies filled '''Jennifer's''' nostrils).

Theme/ Patient : undergoes the action (eg. The falling rocks crushed '''the car''').

Instrument: used to carry out the action (eg. Jamie cut the ribbon '''with a pair of scissors''').

Cause: mindlessly performs the action (eg. '''An avalanche''' destroyed the ancient temple).

Location: where the action occurs (eg. Johnny and Linda played carelessly '''in the park''').

Goal: what the action is directed towards (eg. The caravan continued on '''toward the distant oasis''').

Source: where the action originated (eg. The rocket was launched '''from Central Command''').

FEATURES

Thematic roles have sometimes been associated with a theory known as Case Theory , as in many languages thematic roles are reflected in the case which the noun assumes. However, nowadays most linguists deny the grammatical visibility (i.e. the morpho-syntactic marking) of thematic roles, as most languages do not mark thematic roles homomorphically: For example, in German Nominative can realize Agent, Experiencer, or THEME. In contrast, other languages (like Thai) have no such markings at all and others (like English) employ word regularities to express the thematic constellations of a sentence.

Theta-criterion: in a sentence, each thematic role is assigned to a single noun phrase, and each noun phrase bears a unique thematic role. This is a proposed universal principle of grammar. (See also Universal Grammar .)

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