5.

0
Semantic Roles

As noted before, semantic roles were introduced as a

way of classifying the arguments of predicators
(mostly verbs and adjectives) into a closed set of
participant types.

Even though we cannot make any absolute

generalizations about the relationship between
grammatical functions and semantic roles, the
properties of semantic roles do interact in regular ways
with certain grammatical constructions.
A list of the most relevant thematic roles and their
associated properties is given below
Agt= agent
Pat= patient
Assign a semantic role to each argument in
the following sentences

a. The crocodile devoured the doughnut.

b. John came from Seoul.
c. John is afraid of Bill.
d The ice melted.
e. The vacuum cleaner terrifies the child.
Reference: (5)
English Syntax: An Introduction
Jong-Bok Kim and Peter Sells
January 11, 2008