English Semantics

What is Semantics?
• Semantics is the study of meaning.

̶ But: what kind of meaning? The meaning that we find in life? in

a painting? in music?
• The meaning we are concerned with here is the meaning that we
actually find in language.
• Hence: Semantics is the study of meaning in human language(s).
• The term study indicates that it is part of Linguistics, which is the
study of human languages.

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 English Semantics
Components of Grammar
• Example: Mary ate the apples.
• What is this sentence made out of?
• It is made out of the words Mary, ate, the and apples.
• There are also individual sounds that constituted this sentence.
• The elements the and apples form a phrase, i.e. a noun phrase
• Again, the verb ate can be combined with the apples and create
the verb phrase.
• The sentence also gives some sense.
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 English Semantics
What is a grammar of a language?
• Generally in Linguistics, when we say grammar, we are not talking
about the type of grammar you learned at school.
• Here, grammar refers to every single part of a language; the
part that you need to make that language work.
• So, in the sentence Mary ate the apples,
̶ There are individual sounds
̶ The are words and morphemes
̶ There are phrases and a clause
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̶ The structure also gives some sense
 English Semantics
Components of a grammar

Sounds Form Meaning

Phonetics & Phonology Morphology & Semantics &

Syntax Pragmatics
Question: Is meaning really important? Do we need this part at all?
Can’t we just stick with sounds and form only?

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 English Semantics
• To answer this question, think about the sentence we treated in our
English Morphosyntax class. That is:
e.g. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
• What does this sentence tell you about the importance of semantics
to language?
• This sentence is made out of the following elements:

̶ the sounds such as /k/, /g/, /i/, etc.

̶ the morphemes like –less, idea + -s, etc
̶ there are also phrases as in the NP = Colorless green ideas
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 English Semantics
• [Colorless green ideas] NP [sleep furiously] VP
• This sentence misses nothing; it is perfect in terms of form.
• Here, the concept of grammaticality is important. It means a
structure contains everything your language should contain.
̶ This sentence does not violate any of the syntactic notions.
̶ The sentence contains an NP which is a subject & a VP.
̶ So, syntactically this sentence is in a perfect condition.
• One thing is missing in this sentence. It does not sound right
though its syntax is exactly perfect.
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 English Semantics
• Specifically, the problem with this sentence is that colorless green
ideas cannot sleep. Ideas do not sleep.
̶ People sleep…animate subjects can sleep.
• This is a sentence given by Noam Chomsky as evidence for the
need for meaning or the need for semantics.
• This is why meaning is part of the grammar of a language or part of
the language faculty.

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 English Semantics
• In any study or any discipline of study, there are theories.
• In Physics, for example, there are theories that explain gravity.
• Linguistics is the science of human language.

̶ Hence, it requires its own set of theories that explain d/t things.
̶ Our goal here is to develop a theory of semantics.
• The first thing in working out a theory of semantics is to identify
the phenomena that we need our theory to explain.
• A theory of semantics must seek to explain what we call
productivity.
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 English Semantics
• What is productivity?
• Here, we produce new or novel meaning.

e.g. The ugly man saw Mary and her cat that was next to a bat
jump over the planet Venus.
• Have you ever heard of this sentence before? Have you ever
produced this sentence before? No!
• How do we produce new meaning?
• In language acquisition theory, especially according to Behaviorism,
by imitating from someone.
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̶ But: this is new/novel meaning produced by the speaker.
 English Semantics
• How do we do that?

̶ This is a natural phenomenon found in natural languages.

• The guiding principle that we use to explain productivity is the
Principle of Compositionality.
• This principle states that the meaning of a sentence is the function
of the meanings of its component words and how they are
combined.
e.g. Bob ate the apple = meaning
M1 M2 M3 M4
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 English Semantics
• e.g. Bob ate the apple = meaning

M1 M2 M3 + M4 NP

• Bob ate the apple = meaning

M1 M2 + M5

VP

• Bob ate the apple = meaning

M1 + M6 = M7

• The meaning of M7 is equal to M6 + M1. And this is how we arrive

at the meaning.
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 English Semantics
• We combine the component parts; we combine the meaning of
each and every word.
• How the words combined together to form the final meaning was
also taken into account.

̶ In syntax, M2 and M5 give the VP and we called this M6.

• Also consider another example:

e.g. I love coffee.

• Compare this with a mathematical equation w/ch yields d/t results

10 ÷ 5 x 2 = ? 1) 10 ÷ 5 = 2 x 2 = 4

2) 10 ÷ (5x2) = 10 ÷ 10 = 1 12
 English Semantics
• Hence, first, the word love must be combined with coffee.
• Then, “I” can be combined with the result of love and coffee.
• This is similar to Maths, i.e. we do not simply combine the
meaning of I, with the meaning of love and with the meaning of
coffee.
• We also consider how they are combined. That is, you cannot
simply add the meanings of words without considering syntax.
• Syntax and Semantics are very closely related fields (more to
come on this later).
̶ Semantico-syntax 13
 English Semantics
• The principle of compositionality explains the phenomenon of
productivity.
• But: There are problems in applying this principle. Consider the
examples:
(1) A: Here’s your phone. I found it in the café.
B: Thank you!
(2) A: You’re idiot!
B: Thank you!
• Do you think that the sentence in 1 (B) and 2 (B) has the same
meaning? 14
 English Semantics
• According to the principle of compositionality, the meaning of
thank you is the result of the meaning of thank and the meaning
of you.
• But this meaning is not the case in 2 (B).
• So what is the problem?
• The problem is that there is a slight difference in what the
sentence means and what the speaker means.
• Sentence meaning vs speaker meaning

1. The principle of compositionality cannot explain speaker meaning.

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 English Semantics
2. Contextualized meaning
• The principle of compositionality cannot explain/handle contextual
effects arising from different contextual meanings.
• Consider the following scenarios:

(1) A: I’m hungry. (NB: ‘B’ is a friend or colleague of ‘A’)

B: me too!
(2) Beggar: I’m hungry
Passerby: Here’s five birr for you.
• What is the meaning of I’m hungry in (1) A and (2)??
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2. Contextualized meaning
• The meaning depends on who utters it:
• In (1), it means let’s have food.
• In (2), it means I need some money.
• let’s have lunch I need some money
• We cannot extract these contextual meanings by applying the
principle of compositionality.

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 English Semantics
3. Linguistic knowledge vs world knowledge
• Consider the following example: Please open the window.
• What is the meaning of this sentence?
• Taken out of the context, this sentence means somebody wants
someone to open the window.
̶ This is a very direct meaning and also called literal meaning.
• But: It can also mean I feel hot now.

̶ This meaning can’t be obtained by merely connecting meanings of

the individual words & how they are connected (ling. knowledge).
̶̶ We need another type of knowledge, i.e. Encyclopedic knowledge.
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 English Semantics
3. Linguistic knowledge vs world knowledge
• Encyclopedic or world knowledge refers to knowledge about how
the world works.
• A competent human being knows the simple world fact that when
people feel hot and to become more comfortable, they have to
open up a window because opening up of a window creates a
breeze of air that would cool down their body.
̶ This has nothing to do with linguistics (knowing how the lg works).
̶ We cannot understand the intended meaning of this sentence
unless we combine our linguistic knowledge with world knowledge
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4. The problem of individual differences
• Let’s consider the following sentences:

1. I like coffee. 2. I like gold.

• What is the meaning of sentence (1)? What about (2)?
• We all understand the meanings of the two sentences.
• But: People do not agree on what coffee and gold mean.
• So coffee for many of us means black, hot and bitter.
• For others, coffee is creamy, cold and sweet.
• The principle of Compositionality cannot operate as we cannot
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agree on the meaning of coffee.
 English Semantics
4. The problem of Circularity
• Let’s look at this issue at word level for simplicity sake. e.g. coffee

̶ We said earlier that there are individual variations in telling the

meaning of the word coffee.
 For you and me, coffee is black, hot and bitter.
 For others, it may be creamy, cold and sweet.
 Still for others, coffee might mean a mixture of the above two.

• For now, let’s take one & take a definition of the word coffee as it
is a hot drink from beans grown in Ethiopia that is black in color &
bitter in taste. 21
 English Semantics
• In such a case, we may be still required to tell the meanings of bean, hot,
drinkable, etc. as given in a dictionary.

̶ These words themselves need more words to be defined.

o That is the problem of circularity.

Solution to the problem of circularity?

• Defining a word like coffee using code or numbers instead of using words.

• For example, the word coffee can be assigned with a code 0110001.

̶ You do not need to go back & define the codes or the numbers.
• You cannot explain one thing with the same exact thing.

̶ There could be individual differences & variation in interpretation.

̶ This is why we come up with meta language (e.g. code, no or algorithms).22

 English Semantics
• The term meaning can be applied to two different things:

a) It can be applied to the actual language or sentences themselves.

̶ Here we are talking about sentence meaning.
̶ The type of meaning we are concerned with is part of language.
b) It can be applied to the users of the language
̶ This is also called speaker meaning.
̶ In this case, this type of meaning is worked out from the context.
̶ This meaning type shows variation according to individuals & context
• With which two branches of linguistics do you associate these
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meaning types?
 English Semantics
More on Meaning
• Consider the following utterance made in two contexts.

e.g. 1. It is raining heavily here.

2. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
• Do these sentences have meaning?

̶ The first one, yes! because we understand the sense it makes.

̶ The second one, no! It does not make sense; it is nonsense.
• We said sentence (1) is meaningful but that is not the whole story

̶ There is a bit more to it.

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• In this sentence, let’s imagine two situations:
 English Semantics
More on Meaning
1) You are in Addis Ababa and you called up your friend who is in
Hawasa. You asked him about the weather in Hawasa and he
replied: It is raining heavily here.
̶ In this case, the sentence is meaningful.
̶ The sentence is also informative, i.e. it provides the listener with
new information that the listener did not know of before.
̶ That is, the person from Hawasa provided the person in Addis
Ababa with new information about the weather.
• Now, imagine another scenario: 25
 English Semantics
More on Meaning
2) You are at a bus stop. There are two people standing there and
patiently waiting for the bus. All of a sudden, one person (speaker
‘A’) looked at the other and said: It is raining heavily here.
• Did the listener (speaker ‘B’) hear something informative?
• Though the sentence is meaningful, it does not give new
information to the listener, so it is not informative.
̶ The listener knew that it was raining heavily there.
• If that is the case, what is the purpose of this sentence?
̶ It was used as a polite strategy to break the ice b/n the two persons
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 English Semantics
Levels of Semantic Analysis
Utterances, Sentences and Propositions
• These are the three levels of abstractions.
• These are important to pinpoint which parts of semantic analysis
we want to deal with.
̶ Are we looking at semantics on the utterance level? on the
sentence level or on the proposition level?
̶ Are there any differences among these levels?
̶ Of these levels of analysis, which one is more important to
meaning? 27
 English Semantics
Utterances, Sentences and Propositions
1) Utterance:
• It is just any act of uttering and constitutes the basic form (physical
• So uttering basically means you are saying something now.
• Conventionally, we indicate an utterance by using two single
quotation marks.
e.g. ‘She loves apples.’
• If a person says I love apples three times (in d/t occasions), there
are three utterances.
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 English Semantics
1) Utterance:
• These three utterances are:
‘I love apples.’ utterance 1 occasion 1
‘I love apples.’ utterance 2 occasion 2
‘I love apples.’ utterance 3 occasion 3
Characteristics of utterance
• It needs not be grammatical. E.g. yeah, ouch! Not full sentences
• It has to be uttered by one person at a specific time, place &
event
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• It can be any piece of language
 English Semantics
2) Sentence:
• A sentence takes into consideration the grammar of the language.
• In our previous discussion, the three utterances form one sentence.
• That one sentence is: I like apples.
• This is because all the three utterances contain the same grammatical
information. Three d/t utterances of one sentence.
• Consider this structure: Is what it

̶ Is it an utterance? why? Why not?

̶ Is it a sentence? why? Why not?
• Sentences are conventionally represented by italics. 30
 English Semantics
3) Proposition:
• This is the most abstract level of all.
• Consider the following examples:
e.g. a) John ate the apples.
b) The apples were eaten by John.
̶ Here we have two different sentences.
̶ Why? The central core of a sentence is its grammatical facts.
̶ The grammar of ‘a’ is different from the grammar of ‘b’. ‘a’ is an
active sentence and ‘b’ is passive.
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 English Semantics
3) Proposition:
• But: the two sentences contain essentially the same idea.
• They both want to convey to us the same exact message.
• There is an apple and there is a person named John and there is an event
of eating.
• John was the person performed the action of eating; the apple was the
object /the acted up on.
• We can translate what the two sentences say into a proposition.
• Proposition takes the form of the action and we ask about the agents of
the action & we ask about the theme or patient of the action.
E.g. EAT (Agent, Theme (patient) 32
 English Semantics
3) Proposition:
E.g. EAT (John, the apple)
• This is basically the proposition or the essential core meaning
behind the two sentences.
• We are not concerned with the grammatical information here.
That is, one is active form and the other is passive.
̶ But: The focus is the essential meaning the two sentences share.
• The use of capital letters indicate that we do not mean the word
eat in English but the concept of eat as it’s universally understood.
• Purpose? Translation in action 33
 English Semantics
Reference and Sense
• In our previous discussion, we said that a semantic analysis can be
done at three different levels.
• These are:
̶ Word level,
̶ Sentence level and
̶ Utterance level

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 English Semantics
Reference and Sense
Word Semantics
• Sometimes, it is also called lexical semantics.
• There are two main things that we look at within the field of
lexical semantics.
• These are reference and sense.
• Consider the following example:
A: Look at the tree
B: ……………………….
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 English Semantics
Reference and Sense
• Here, the phrase this tree is used to refer to the tree in front of
him.
• So the tree is the object of this reference which we call the
referent.
• The reference is the speaker act and it shows the intention of the
speaker.

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 English Semantics
Reference and Sense
• Now, imagine you were listening to speaker A saying this and you
hear the phrase the tree before you actually see the tree in the
real world …how would you understand this phrase uttered by
speaker A before you have got the chance to look at the actual
tree in the real world?
• Well you would hear the phrase the tree and think of the a mental
image that represents what you think tree is.
̶ This mental image is what we call a concept.
̶ It is a mental representation and this is what we call sense. 37
 English Semantics
Reference and Sense
• Part of being able to make reference or to refer to something is
partly based on our knowledge of the sense of the thing.
• Hence, the sense of the word or an expression determines what
can and what cannot a representative or a reference of the word
tree.
• This is called the semiotic triangle, first introduced by Ogden &
Richards in their work “The Meaning of Meaning” (1923).
• The Semiotic Triangle explains to us how we get meaning out of a
linguistic expression. 38
 English Semantics
Reference and Sense
• In our example, the tree is a linguistic expression.
• This linguistic expression itself denotes an object in the real world.

The tree

denotes object

linguistic expression signifies

signifier
• This process is called denotation, which is purely a linguistic
phenomenon. 39
 English Semantics
Reference and Sense
• When we utter the phrase or the linguistic expression the tree, what
pops up immediately to our mind is the sense of the expression.
• And the sense of the expression has one function which is
determining which objects in the world may be considered a tree
and which may not be.
sense

the tree object

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 English Semantics
Reference and Sense
• Now, let us see the different cases of reference.

1. Constant: every single time a person utters a linguistic expression,

that person should and must mean exactly the same thing.

e.g. Moon constantly or always refers to the actual moon we see it

in the sky.

̶ And there is no situation in which one says the moon that

actually means table.

• Another case of reference is the sun.

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 English Semantics
Reference and Sense
2. No physical reference: this refers to the situation where you have
no physical reference.
• Typical cases: function words such as a, the, in or is.
• These words have no physical reference.
• This also includes abstract notions like love, idea, hate, etc.
• Also myth creatures or peoples.
e.g. unicorn does not exist in the real world; it does not pick out a
physical object in the real world but we can talk about it.
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 English Semantics
Reference and Sense
3. The third case of reference is where one expression picks out multiple
referents in the real world.
• Imagine you walk into a classroom and there are ten female students
and you utter the expression the girl.
̶ Now, what does the girl pick out? It may pick out Aster, Foziya, Marta,
or …
̶ Hence, the same expression has several different referents.
Aster
the girl Foziya
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Marta
 English Semantics
Reference and Sense
4. This is when you have multiple expressions which all pick out the
same exact thing, object or reference.

multiple expressions object or referent

e.g Take the expressions Donald Trump, the former president of

USA and the renowned businessman …all these 3 different
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expressions refer to the same person in the real world.
 English Semantics
Reference, Sense and Denotation (more detail)
• In our previous discussion, we said the following:
• Word semantics has two areas: reference and sense.
• Reference is a speaker act & it shows the intention of the speaker.
• When you hear a word, you just think of a mental image & that
represents what you think, say, a table is. This is called sense.
• Part of being able to make a reference or to refer to sth is partly
based on our knowledge of the sense of a thing.
• The sense of an expression determines what can & cannot be a
referent of the dog. 45
 English Semantics
Reference, Sense and Denotation (more detail)
• The sense of an expression seems to be a stable relationship.
̶ Every time we mention table, we probably come up with the
same mental image in our brains.
̶ This mental image always determines or limits what could be a
table in the real world almost in the same way.
• The word table as a signal/ a linguistic expression has a stable r/p.

̶ It always denotes an object in the real world that qualifies as table.

̶ Hence, denotation is also a stable relationship.

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 English Semantics
Reference, Sense and Denotation (more detail)
• What about reference? It is basically a speaker act & has to do with
the speaker’s intentions & the context they are used in.
e.g. When speaker A says the student his intention was to pick out
the teacher. The student intention teacher
̶ This is not a stable relationship because student was used to refer
to something which is not a student.
• The discussion above shows the differences b/n reference, sense &
denotation.
• Now, recall the four different cases of reference we discussed. 47
 English Semantics
Reference
• Reference is one of the major areas/branches of lexical semantics.
• Here, we are going to discuss two issues:
̶ Theories of Reference and
̶ Types of Reference (or Markers of Reference)
1) Theories of Reference
• Under this, there are two major theories:
̶ Denotational Theory of Meaning and
̶ Representation Theory of Meaning
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 English Semantics
Reference

1) Denotational Theory of Meaning

• It suggests a direct relationship between a linguistic expression (or a
word) and the object in the real world.
• In short, this theory states that meaning equals to denotation.
• Hence, meaning is the r/p between a word or a linguistic expression
and the object that it denotes.
Linguistic
expression or word Object/Thing
Denotation
• This seems to be the bottom half of the Semiotic Triangle. 49
 English Semantics
Reference

1) Denotational Theory of Meaning

• According to this theory, you know something because you know
exactly what it denotes. Accordingly,

̶ Proper names denote Individuals/people in the real world.

̶ Common nouns sets of things/objects

̶ Verbs Actions
• This idea is included in Formal Semantics and formal Semantics makes
no commitment to psychological matters when it comes to meaning.
Denotation is at the heart of formal semantics.
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 English Semantics
Reference
1) Denotational Theory of Meaning
• Recall our previous discussion where we said there are cases in
which a linguistic expression have nothing to represent in the real
world.
• Specifically, recall the example unicorn (the linguistic expression)
which has no actual object or referent in the real world.

unicorn ?
Denotation
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 English Semantics
Reference
1) Denotational Theory of Meaning
• If meaning equals denotation and if in this case denotation
amounts to zero/nothing, the meaning is also zero or no meaning.
• According to this theory, we cannot understand unicorn because
it has no meaning.
• Any solution to this problem?
• Let’s discuss the second theory of reference.

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 English Semantics
Reference

2) Representational Theory of Meaning

• According to this theory, meaning equals Mental Representation or the
sense or the concept of the word that we have in our mind.
• So, meaning is the relationship b/n a word and the sense or the mental
representation that we have in our mind.
̶ That is, we understand a linguistic expression because we understand
its sense.
• The sense or the mental representation determines which object in
the real world the word can denote.
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 English Semantics
2) Representational Theory of Meaning

Sense

Word Denotation
Object
• As the picture shows, a word (say unicorn) means the mental
representation or sense which pops up in our mind.
• This occurs though the expression has no object in the real world.
• Unicorn means the concept that we have in our mind i.e. sense.
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 English Semantics
Theories of Concepts
• According to the Representational Theory of Meaning, a linguistic
expression or a word means the sense or the concept (or the mental
representation) that we have in our mind.
• What is this concept?
• There are some theories that try to explain what it is.
1) The Image Theory
• states that when a linguistic expression is uttered the concept that we
think of is an actual image.

e.g. What is a table?

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 English Semantics
Theories of Concepts

1) The Image Theory

• It is hard to answer because people have different images in their
minds about what constitutes a table.
̶ Images for table: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4…
• The other problem of this theory is that: even in the best scenario if
we agree that one image for a table, it would be very difficult to
include other types of tables into the category table.
e.g. …the image does not look very much like the agreed picture

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 English Semantics
Theories of Concepts
2) The Classical Theory
• It is also called the Necessary and Sufficient Condition Theory.
• According to this theory, when we say a word table, the sense in our
minds is NOT an image.
̶ But: A list of conditions that a table must meet to be an actual

table in the real world.

• The list of conditions for a dog;

̶ A dog must be: + Animate, + four legs, -gills

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 English Semantics
Theories of Concepts
2) The Classical Theory
Dog: + Animate
+ four legs
- gills

Dog Thing
• You use this list of necessary & sufficient conditions to determine

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 English Semantics
Theories of Concepts
2) The Classical Theory
• You use this list of necessary & sufficient conditions [+ Animal, +
four legs, - gills] to determine whether what you see in the real
world is a dog or not.
• Problems associated with this theory:
a) People do not tend to agree upon all of the necessary & sufficient C
b) How much of these necessary & sufficient conditions must we
agree to understand each other is not clear.
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 English Semantics
Theories of Concepts
2) The Classical Theory
• For instance, the meaning of the word Gold is mediated by our concept.
And this concept is different for many people.
• For an ordinary person, gold might be:
Gold: [+ metal, + expensive, + yellowish, + shiny]
̶ Of course, a lot of things in the world fit this description, so how can we
still are able to understand each other on what gold is?
• Besides, for a person mining gold or a scientist: gold’s density, no of
atoms, its shape as in bent or not are considered.
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 English Semantics
Theories of Concepts
2) The Classical Theory
• This theory looks at things in a more either 0 or 1 relationship;
you are either a good example of something or not.
e.g. the category bird under the necessary & sufficient condition
could be: + Animal, + fly, + feathers, w/c are the basic things when
we think of a bird.
• Is sparrow a bird?
• Is chicken a bird?
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 English Semantics
Theories of Concepts
3) The Prototype Theory
• states that there are degrees of membership to a category
• We have central member or prototypical or typical member.
̶ This is the member that pops to your mind when you think of a
category of a thing/object.
• When you think of the category bird, canary pops to your mind. And it is
the typical member of the category of bird.
• Other types that resemble canary are further away from the prototypical
member. These are: sparrow, blue jay, bat & penguin.
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 English Semantics
Theories of Concepts
3) The Prototype Theory

Bird
Canary

sparrow Animals
that swim

bat
penguin

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 English Semantics
Theories of Concepts

3) The Prototype Theory

• The picture shows difference in degree of membership to the prototypical
member and this solves the problems we had with the previous theories.
• For instance, penguin is not a good example of the category bird (as it is
further away from the typical member) but it is a good example of the
category animals that swim (accepting fuzziness).
• Is penguin a bird or animal that swim?

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 English Semantics
Types or Markers of Reference
There are three main types of reference:
1) Definite reference
e.g. The man is here.
2) Indefinite reference
e.g. A man is here.
3) Generic reference
e.g. Man is the smartest creature on the earth.
• A more detailed discussion of these will come later.

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 English Semantics
Denotative and Connotative Meanings
1) Denotative Meaning
• Also known as conceptual or literal meaning.
• It’s the precise, literal definition of a word as it is found in a
dictionary.
• It represents the explicit or referential meaning of a sign.
• constitutes the primary meaning of a lexical item
e.g. rose: a flower which grows on a bush
Hollywood: the American film industry that is based in
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Hollywood, California
 English Semantics
Denotative and Connotative Meanings
1) Connotative Meaning
• This refers to the wide array of positive and negative associations
that most words carry with them.
• is the emotional & imaginative association surrounding a word
• goes beyond the literal or dictionary meanings of words
e.g. rose: we associate roses with romantic love, beauty, and with
special days like Valentine’s Day or anniversaries
Hollywood: connotes such things as glitz, glamour, etc.
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• Poets & advertisers exploit the connotative meanings of words.
 English Semantics
Denotative and Connotative Meanings
• Identify the denotative & connotative meanings of the following
words.
A) needle
B) dog
C) politician
D) mother

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 English Semantics
Semantic Roles/Thematic Roles
• We think of words as ‘containers’ of meaning (see our previous
discussion).
e.g. What is a man? Well, it contains the components or the
features [+ human, + adult, + masculine]
• It is also possible to look at the ‘roles’ they fulfill within the
situation described by a sentence.
e.g. The man ate the apples.
̶ Here, the verb describes the action
̶ The NPs describe the roles of entities, such as people & things.69
 English Semantics
Semantic Roles/Thematic Roles
• We call these semantic roles or thematic roles.
• There are a few thematic roles in English.
1) Agent
• is the initiator of some action, capable of acting with volition
e.g. John cooked the food.
̶ Here, John is the entity that performed the action.
e.g. The fox jumped out of the ditch.

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 English Semantics
Semantic Roles/Thematic Roles
2) Theme
• is the entity that is involved or affected by the action and this role
is known as THEME (or PATIENT)
• It is the entity undergoing the effect of some action, often
undergoing some change in state.
e.g. The sun melted the ice.
• The theme can also be an entity that is simply being described
(i.e. not performing an action).
e.g. The man is kind. 71
 English Semantics
• Agents and themes are the most common semantic roles.
• Agents are typically human as in the following:
e.g. Mary ate the apple.
• But: Agents can also be non-human entities that cause actions as
in the noun phrases denoting:
̶ A natural force: The wind blew the ball away.
̶ A machine: A car ran over the ball.
̶ A creature: The dog caught the ball.
• The theme is typically non-human but can be human.
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e.g. The dog chased the boy.
 English Semantics
3) Instrument
• If an agent uses another entity to perform an action, that other
entity fills the role of instrument.
e.g. The man wrote a letter with a pen.
̶ Here, the NP, a pen, is used in the semantic role of instrument.
4) Experiencer
• When a NP is used to designate an entity as the person who has a
feeling, perception/state, it fills the semantic role of experiencer.
e.g. The boy feels sad. John saw the smoke.
Did you hear that noise? 73
 English Semantics
5) Location
• refers to the place in which something is situated or takes place.
• where an entity is (on the table, in the room) and fills the role of
location
e.g. The students are in the class.
6) Source: where an entity moves from
• The entity from which something moves, either literally or
metaphorically.
a) The plane came back from Mekele.
b) We get the idea from a French magazine. 74
 English Semantics
7) Goal
• The entity towards which something moves, either literally or
metaphorically.
e.g. a) He handed his license to the policeman.
b) Pat told the joke to his friends.

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