Semantics

Semantic roles

The actual role a participant plays in some real or imagined situation, apart from the linguistic encoding of those situations. It's the relationship that a participant has with the main verb in a clause.

Types

1. Agent: the one who performs the action.
2. Patient: the one affected by the verb.
3. Experiencer: the one who perceives something.
4. Theme: the one that undergoes the action.
5. Location: the place where the action happens.
6. Source: the place from which an action originates.
7. Goal: the place where the action is directed.

Concerns

Should semantic roles be regarded as syntactic, lexical or semantic/conceptual entities? Semantic roles are considered a primitive part of linguistic knowledge by some and a derivative notion of some specific aspect of the form-meaning mapping by others Most agree that semantic roles are semantic/conceptual elements

Examples

1. The boy threw the ball.
2. The man ate the food.
3. Mary smelled the pie being cooked.
4. Peter saw a bird on the sky.
5. The plane landed on the platform.
6. The children came from school.
7. He shot the arrow at the apple.

Aloe & Lagorio