Theta Roles and Thematic Relations

The term theta role is often used interchangeably with the term thematic relations. The reason
for this is that theta roles are often referred to by the most prominent thematic relation in them.
For example, a common theta role is the primary or external argument. Typically, this theta role
maps to a noun phrase which bears an agent thematic relation. As such, the theta role is called
the "agent" theta role. This often leads to confusion between the two notions. The two concepts,
however, can be distinguished in a number of ways; we will mention only three:

 Thematic relations express the semantic relations that the entities denoted by the noun
phrases bear towards the action or state denoted by the verb. By contrast, Theta roles are
a syntactic notion about the number, type and placement of obligatory arguments. For
instance, in the sentence Mary ate the pickle, the fact that there are two arguments (Mary
and the pickle) and Mary must be capable of doing the action, she must also have the will
to do it, and the pickle must be something that can be eaten is a fact about theta roles (the
number and type of the argument). The actual semantic type of the argument is described
by the thematic relation.

 An argument can bear only one theta role, but can take multiple thematic relations. For
example, in "Susan gave Bill the paper", Susan bears both Agent and Source thematic
relations, but it only bears one theta role (the external "agent" role).

 Thematic relations are properties of nouns and noun phrases. Theta roles can be assigned
to any argument including noun phrases, prepositional phrases and embedded clauses.
Thematic relations are not assigned to embedded clauses, and prepositions typically mark
the thematic relation on an NP.

Theta roles may be considered as bundles of thematic relations associated with a particular
argument position.

Theta Grids

Theta roles are stored in the theta grid of a verb. A theta grid is represented after the verb as a
list of the thematic relations required by the respective verb between angle brackets: give <
agent, theme, goal >, push < agent, theme >, The argument associated with the external position,
which in active sentences is the subject, is underlined and written first.
Thematic Hierarchies

Linguists have observed that particular thematic relations (and theta roles) map onto particular
positions in the sentence, for example, agents map to subject positions, themes and patients onto
object positions and goals into indirect objects. This has been encoded in the Universal
Alignment Hypothesis. The thematic relations are mapped directly onto argument position in a
hierarchy: Agent > Recipient/Beneficiary >Theme / Patient > Instrument > Location. Thematic
roles express the meaning played by a noun phrase in its relation with the state or action
described by the verb of the respective sentence. Several thematic roles have been proposed,
although there are certain areas where agreement has not been reached. A number of tests have
been suggested aimed at identifying thematic roles. Before discussing them, we will present the
major thematic relations accompanied by their defining features:

 AGENT: the initiator of some action, displaying animacy and volition, e.g. Tom chased
Jerry.

 EXPERIENCER: the entitiy which is aware of the state or action, but which is not in
control of the state or action, e.g. Tom saw himself in the mirror.

 THEME: the entity which is moved by an action, or whose location is described, e.g.
Tom kicked Jerry out of the window.

 PATIENT: the entity undergoing the effect of some action, often accompanied by a
change of state, e.g. Tom scratched the door.

 INSTRUMENT: the means by which a certain action is performed, e.g. Tom hit Jerry
with a broom.

 RECIPIENT: the entity receiving something, e.g. Tom gave Jerry a cake.

 BENEFICIARY (or BENEFACTIVE): the entity for whose benefit the action is
performed, e.g. Tom played a song for Jerry.

 SOURCE: the entity from which something moves literally or metaphorically, e.g. When
Tom arrived, Jerry had left the house.

 GOAL: the entity towards something moves literally or metaphorically, e.g. Tom ran to
the door.
  CAUSE: the entity that mindlessly performs the action, e.g. A hurricane destroyed the
house.

 STIMULUS: the entity causing an effect in the experience, e.g. Tom didn’t like Jerry.

 PERCEPT: the entity which is perceived, e.g. Tom saw himself in the mirror.

 LOCATION: the place where somethig is situated, e.g. Jerry was dancing on the piano
keys.

 TIME: time at which the action occurs, e.g. Tom hasn’t seen Jerry all morning.

The notion of agency, though intuitively easy to grasp, is not so easy to define. Dowty1 included
in his definition of a Proto(typical)-Agent features such as: volition, sentience2, causes a change
of state, or movement (relative to another participant). In his view, the nominal with the most
elements of the Proto-Agent and the fewest features of the Proto-Patient will be the AGENT of
the sentence. The Proto-Patient has the following characteristics: undergoes change of state, is
causally affected by another participant, stationary relative to movement of another participant
and incremental theme. Thus Dowty regards theta roles as clusters of entailments which allow
various kinds of shading (fuzziness). For instance, in the sentence Mary decorated the house, all
the four Proto-Agent entailments of are present, i.e. volition, sentience, causation and
movement; in sentences like Mary stumbled and broke the plate, and The tornado destroyed the
house, some of the entailments are no longer present, more precisely, volition and sentience and
volition, respectively. In this way, more or less prototypival AGENTs can be identified. The
same applies to PATIENTs. Moreover, according to this approach an EXPERIENCER appears
as a less prototypical AGENT since it involves sentience, but lacks volition and causation, e.g.
Mary felt the cold of the autumn morning. Similarly, an INSTRUMENT includes causation and
movement, but it doesn’t include volition and sentience, e.g. The crane lifted the house.

1
David Dowty is a professor of linguistics at Ohio State University; his areas of interest are semantics and categorial
grammars.

2
Sentience is the capacity for basic consciousness — the ability to feel or perceive, not necessarily including the
faculty of self-awareness.
Some writers (e.g. Foley and Van Valin3, Jackendoff4) proposed a more general thematic role,
namely, ACTOR, which performs, effects, instigates or controls the situation denoted by the
predicate. This role permits inanimate Agents as subjects of sentences. For example, in the
sentence: The train hit the car – the train is the ACTOR.

There have also been suggestions that PATIENTs be anlysed in keeping to the degree of
affectedness. This can be seen in examples like: a. Bob touched Mary’ forehead. b. Jane rubbed
the floor with a wire brush. c. Lily squeezed the lemon. d. George smashed the window with a
chair. Certainly, the change produced in the PATIENT depends on the semantics of the verb, as
well as on the structural properties of the PATIENT.

Thematic roles are emplyed to describe aspects of the interface between semantics and syntax,
namely, to study the semantic relations of the participants involved in the meaning of a verb and
the syntactic ones. The relation between subject position and theta roles is illustrated by the next
sentences: a). John felled the tree with an axe. b). The axe felled the tree. c). The tree felled. Due
to the Proto-Agent properties present in John, i.e. volition, sentience, causation and movement,
he is linked to the subject position. In sentence b, there is no other entity, except the axe, having
causation and movement as properties; that is why, the axe becomes subject. In a similar manner,
the tree (although caracterized only by movement) has no other candidate for the subject of the
sentence, therefore it becomes one.

Theta roles are not only explanatory devices for the semantics-syntax interface, but also ways of
characterizing semantic verbal classes. This can be demonstrated by two classes of ditransitive
psychological verbs. Their arguments correspond to the theta roles of EXPERIENCER and
STIMULUS, but they differ in the way they elicit the subject and object position. They have
been classified into two types:

Type I: admire, like, love, enjoy, relish, savour, fear, and corresponding to the theta grid: <
EXPERIENCER, STIMULUS >

3
Foley, William A., and Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. 1984. Functional syntax and universal grammar. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.

4
Jackendoff, Ray. 1990. Semantic Structures. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Type II: please, surprise, thrill, interest, amuse, frighten, entertain whose theta grid is: <
STIMULUS, EXPERIENCER >

What “entitles” the STIMULUS to the subject position is the possibility of an inchoative
interpretation (implying a change of state) in the EXPERIENCER. As we know, the property of
undergoing change of state is more suitable to be realized as object: The party is pleasing Susan
(at this moment).

Psychological verbs type II, which may express change of state, will thus realize the STIMULUS
as subject and the EXPERIENCER as object. It is interesting to note that psychological verb
type I, where the EXPERIENCER surfaces as the subject, do not seem to be able to give rise to
an inchoative interpretation, i.e. may not be construed as expressing change of state (e.g. *Susan
is liking the party [at this moment]).