Thematic relation

In certain theories of linguistics, thematic relations, also known as semantic roles, are the various roles that a noun phrase may play with respect to the action or state described by a governing verb, commonly the sentence's main verb. For example, in the sentence "Susan ate an apple", Susan is the doer of the eating, so she is an agent;[1] the apple is the item that is eaten, so it is a patient. While most modern linguistic theories make reference to such relations in one form or another, the general term, as well as the terms for specific relations, varies: "participant role", "semantic role", and "deep case" have also been employed with similar sense.

For thematic relations at the syntax-semantics interface, see theta role.
Grammatical features
Related to nouns
Related to verbs
General features
Syntax relationships
Semantics
Phenomena

Major thematic relations

The following major thematic relations have been identified:[2]

Agent
deliberately performs the action (e.g., Bill ate his soup quietly.).

Experiencer
the entity that receives sensory or emotional input (e.g. Susan heard the song. I cried.).

Stimulus
entity that prompts sensory or emotional feeling – not deliberately (e.g. David detests onions!).

Theme
undergoes the action but does not change its state (e.g., We believe in one God. I have two children. I put the book on the table. He gave the gun to the police officer.) (Sometimes used interchangeably with patient.)

Patient
undergoes the action and changes its state (e.g., The falling rocks crushed the car.). (Sometimes used interchangeably with theme.)

Instrument
used to carry out the action (e.g., Jamie cut the ribbon with a pair of scissors.).

Force or Natural Cause
mindlessly performs the action (e.g., An avalanche destroyed the ancient temple.).

Location
where the action occurs (e.g., Johnny and Linda played carelessly in the park. I'll be at Julie's house studying for my test.).

Direction or Goal
where the action is directed towards (e.g., The caravan continued on toward the distant oasis. He walked to school.).

Recipient
a special kind of goal associated with verbs expressing a change in ownership, possession (e.g., I sent John the letter. He gave the book to her.).

Source or Origin
where the action originated (e.g., The rocket was launched from Central Command. She walked away from him.).

Time
the time at which the action occurs (e.g., The pitcher struck out nine batters today)

Beneficiary/ recipient
the entity for whose benefit the action occurs (e.g., I baked Reggie a cake. He built a car for me. I fight for the king.).

Manner
the way in which an action is carried out (e.g., With great urgency, Tabitha phoned 911.).

Purpose
the reason for which an action is performed (e.g., Tabitha phoned 911 right away in order to get some help.).

Cause
what caused the action to occur in the first place; not for what, rather because of what (e.g., Because Clyde was hungry, he ate the cake.).

There are not always clear boundaries between these relations. For example, in "the hammer broke the window", hammer might be labeled an agent (see below), an instrument, a force, or possibly a cause. Nevertheless, some thematic relation labels are more logically plausible than others.

Relationship to case

In many languages, such as Finnish and Hungarian and Turkish, thematic relations may be reflected in the case-marking on the noun. For instance, Hungarian has an instrumental case ending (-val/-vel), which explicitly marks the instrument of a sentence. Languages like English often mark such thematic relations with prepositions.

Conflicting terminologies

The term thematic relation is frequently confused with theta role. Many linguists (particularly generative grammarians) use the terms interchangeably. This is because theta roles are typically named by the most prominent thematic relation that they are associated with. To make matters more confusing, depending upon which theoretical approach one assumes, the grammatical relations of subject and object, etc., are often closely tied to the semantic relations. For example, in the typological tradition agents/actors (or "agent-like" arguments) frequently overlap with the notion of subject (S). These ideas, when they are used distinctly, can be distinguished as follows:

Thematic relations
are purely semantic descriptions of the way in which the entities described by the noun phrase are functioning with respect to the meaning of the action described by the verb. A noun may bear more than one thematic relation. Almost every noun phrase bears at least one thematic relation (the exception are expletives). Thematic relations on a noun are identical in sentences that are paraphrases of one another.
Theta roles
are syntactic structures reflecting positions in the argument structure of the verb they are associated with. A noun may only bear one theta role. Only arguments bear theta roles. Adjuncts do not bear theta roles.
Grammatical relations
express the surface position (in languages like English) or case (in languages like Latin) that a noun phrase bears in the sentence.

Thematic relations concern the nature of the relationship between the meaning of the verb and the meaning of the noun. Theta roles are about the number of arguments that a verb requires (which is a purely syntactic notion). Theta roles are syntactic relations that refers to the semantic thematic relations.

For example, take the sentence "Reggie gave the kibble to Fergus on Friday."

  • Thematic relations: Reggie is doing the action so is the agent, but he is also the source of the kibble (note Reggie bears two thematic relations); the kibble is the entity acted upon so it is the patient; Fergus is the direction/goal or recipient of the giving. Friday represents the time of the action.
  • theta roles: The verb give requires three arguments (see valency). In generative grammar, this is encoded in terms of the number and type of theta roles the verb takes. The theta role is named by the most prominent thematic relation associated with it. So the three required arguments bear the theta roles named the agent (Reggie) the patient (or theme) (the kibble), and goal/recipient (Fergus). On Friday does not receive a theta role from the verb, because it is an adjunct. Note that Reggie bears two thematic relations (Agent and Source), but only one theta role (the argument slot associated with these thematic relations).
  • grammatical relations: The subject (S) of this sentence is Reggie, the object (O) is the kibble, the indirect object is to Fergus, and on Friday is an oblique.

See also

References
  1. Dahl, Östen. "Lectures on linguistic complexity" (PDF). UNIVERSITY of TARTU, Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics.
  2. Thomas E. Payne. Summary of Semantic Roles and Grammatical Relations, 19 October 2007
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