THEMATIC ROLES

THEMATIC ROLES

1. Grammatically relevant semantic relations between predicates and arguments

   • Agent : The animate initiator, causer, doer, or instigator of an action who acts by will or volition, takes responsibility for the action, and is its direct cause.
   • Experiencer: the animate being aVected inwardly by a state or action;
   • Path: the path taken in moving from one place to another in the course of an action;
   • Location : the place-at/in-which or the time-at-which an action occurs (also “temporal”);
   • Goal : the place-to-which or person-to-whom an action is directed, including indirect objects and directional adverbs;
   • Source: the place-from-which or person-from-whom an action emanates;
   • Instrument: the means by which an event is caused, or the tool, generally inanimate, used to carry out an action; an instrument does not act but is acted upon
   • Force : the inanimate cause of an action, which does not act by will or volition;
   • Possessor: the possessor of a thing, really a special kind of locative, since the thing and the possessor must coincide; there are two kinds of possession, depending on whether the possessor and the thing possessed are inherently connected:
     • Inalienable possession : Judy´s head
     • Alienable possession:Judy´s car
   • Range : the specification or limitation of an action
   • Factitive : the object resulting from an action or state, having no prior existence but coming about by virtue of the action or state;
   • Patient : the person or thing aVected by an action, or the entity undergoing a change;
   • Theme: the person or thing which undergoes an action, or that which is transferred or moved by an event but otherwise unchanged;
   • Neutral : the person or thing which is not changed or even acted upon, but simply present at an action:
   • Role: a person playing a role or part in an action or state.
   • Benefactive: the person or thing for which an action is performed or the person who derives something from the actions of another;
   • (Agent, Force, and Instrument together could be considered “Cause”.)