SEMANTIC ROLES:

Fillmore's Semanticization of
Grammar
 Charles J. Fillmore

• he is widely known for developing Case

Grammar and Frame Semantics in the
1960's and 1970's
• he analyses the relation between word
meaning and syntactic patterns

American Linguist
1929-2014
What's Semantic Roles?
 Semantic Roles
• also known as "Case Frames" or "Theta-grids"
• semantic roles are used to indicate the role played by
each entity in a sentence
 Example

What role did Allahnis What's the goal

played in this sentence? of the doer?
Yesterday Allahnis bought
a bouquet of fresh roses
from the market for her
mother.

Where did the action takes

Who benefits from the
place?
action?

When did the action takes

place?
Common Types of Semantic Roles
 AGENT
• doer or instigator of the action denoted by
the predicate

Example:

Ailes kicked the ball.

 PATIENT
• the entity that is involved in or affected by
the action

Example:

Ailes kicked the ball.

 EXPERIENCER
• living entity that experiences feeling,
perception or state

Example:

Ashlee feels so down lately.

 INSTRUMENT
• entity that is used to perform the action

Example:

Angel used whisk to beat the eggs.

 BENEFACTIVE
• entity that benefits from the action or event
denoted by the predicate

Example:

Dhane bought some treats for her pet cat.

 LOCATIVE
• specification by which the action takes
place

Example:

Erika takes her morning walk at Cornelia street.

 SOURCE
• source is the semantic roles of location
entity from which something moves or
originate
Example:

Allahnis is coming home from San Juan.

 GOAL
• entity towards which something moved or
directed

Example:

Allahnis went to San Juan.

 TEMPORAL
• when an event or action takes place

Example:

Ailes is going to her hair appointment this afternoon.