semantic role

meeting 11-12
 semantic roles
• semantic roles also known as thematic roles or
theta roles.
• it attempt to capture the similarities and
differences reflected in arguments.
• related to the previous topic, proposition, which
said that a proposition of sentence consist of a
predicate and one argument or many arguments.
• the goal of semantic role theories is to obtain a
set of semantic roles that can apply to any
arguments of any predicate.
 semantic role
agent= doer of action denoted by predicate.
patient= the undergoer of action or event denoted by
predicate.
recipient= receiver of action done by the agent
experiencer= the living entity that experiences the
action or event denoted by predicate.
theme= the entity that is moved by the action or
event denoted by predicate.
goal= the location or entity from which something
moves. [Aarts, 1997;88]
 semantic roles
• agent= causer/ doer
• patient= the effect of some action
• experiencer= entity experiencing some
psychological state or sensation or feeling.
• recipient= receiver.
• goal= entoty towards which something.
[Radford, 1997; 326]
 semantic roles
• agent= the entity that intentionally carries out the action
of the verb.
• experiencer= the entity that undergoes an emotion, a
state of being, or a perception expressed by the verb.
• theme= the entity that directly receive the action of the
verb.
• instrument= the entity by which the action of the verb is
carried out.
• goal= the direction towards which the action moves.
• source= the direction from which the action originates.
• location= the location where the action takes place.
• benefactive= the entity that receive elemnt as a result of
the action.
 semantic role
• in conclusion,
• agents= usually a subject of a transitive
intransitive, and ditransitive verb.
• themes or patient= mostly direct object of
transitive or ditransitive verb.
• goal, source, location, benefactive/
receiver and instruments are normally
embedded in a prepositional phrase.
• experiencer= usually the subject of certain
verb or stative verb
 grammatical role VS semantic role
– john steered the boat.
• in grammatical role, we might say john is the subject, while the boat
is the direct object.
• in semantic role, the 'doer' of action describing by a 'doing' verb is
john called as agent.
• although we change that clause into a passive one,and it make the
boat become the subject of the clause, but the 'doer' is still
same,john.
– the boat was steered by John.
• meanwhile, the boat in that clause applies as a patient . both those
examples, in the active or passive one, the boat is the patient
because it is done by John.
 semantic role vs grammatical role
• the children sent me a postcard.
– me= receiver of situation, so we can call it as recipient.
– the children= agent, the one doing the sending.
– a postcard= patient, the thing being acted on .

cara membuktikannya;
- the children sent me a postcard.
- the children sent a postcard to me.
- I was sent a postcard by the children.

dalam hal ini, meskipun kalimat tersebut telah di pasifkan,

esensi kalimat nya tidak berubah, tetap yang menerima
adalah 'me'
 semantic roles
• the passengers felt very happy about it.
• my mother heard a great news.
• here, the passengers and my mother are
not Agent, but experiencer.
• because they are doer of action, they are
only experiencing situation or feeling.
 semantic roles
• the pen rolled off the table.
• here, the pen is not Agent because the
rolled off is not acted by the pen itself. the
pen is called as neutral role.
• another sample of neutral role is found in
the previous sentence, my mother heard a
great news. a great news is theme. it is
not the patient because my mother are
not really acting of the news, just
experiencing it.
 semantic roles
• goal= the location or entity towards which
something moves
• it is found in this sentence,
– I went home.
• here, home is a goal because it become
entity towards which something moves.
 exercise
claasify the proposition of these sentences
and tried to analyze their semantic roles.

• the dean of faculty inform it to the students

• susan saw it.
• mary hits her brother.
• john bought three bottles from super market.
• the water was boiled in the kitchen by the chef.