This document discusses thematic roles and grammatical relations. It defines semantic roles as the underlying relationship between a participant and the main verb. The major thematic relations are identified as agent, patient, theme, experiencer, instrument, and goal. Examples are provided for each. Grammatical relations indicate the syntactic relationship between a verb and noun phrases, and include subject, direct object, and indirect object. Oblique is defined as the grammatical relation for objects of prepositions.

1. Ministry of Higher Education &
scientific Research
Salahadin University- Erbil
College of Language-
Department of English.
‫الرحيم‬ ‫الرحمن‬ ‫هللا‬ ‫بسم‬
The Thematic Roles
2016-2017
AWAN K.MUHAMMED
MA STUDENT

2. Outline
-Thematic Roles
-Major types of thematic roles
-Grammatical Relations

3. Semantic Roles
(Berk,1999) defines semantic roles (SRs) are
roles that participants play in events and
situations.
Or, it is the underlying relationship that a
participant has with the main verb in a
clause.

4. Major thematic relations :
 Agent : Initiator of action
The boy ran down the street.
He was chased by the dog.
 Patient :
 Another common theta role is the patient. The patient is something
or somebody that undergoes a change specifically implied by the
verb.

5. Mary burned the scallops.
Kelly painted the fence.
Theme
Theme is the object that is located or relocated in space.
The book is blue.
The ball rolled away

6.  Experiencer
Experiencer or perceiver of an event
John died.
James saw the moon.
 Instrument
Used to carry out the action.
Jamie cut the ribbon with a pair of scissors

7.  Goal
place to which something moves, or
thing toward which an action is directed.
John swam to the raft.
He threw the book at me.

8. Grammatical Relation
Grammatical relation (GRs) are relations
between words in sentences. These are
much more clearly defined than semantic
roles, since they involve human interaction
with communicated content.

9. Grammatical relations indicate the syntactic
relationships between a verb and the noun
phrases present in a clause.
Commonly used grammatical relations
include subject, direct object and indirect object.
Noun phrases which are not a core argument (i.e.,
are not a subject or object of the verb) are
called oblique.

10. Oblique
: Oblique is the grammatical relation possessed by
all "objects of prepositions" in English. Percival is an
oblique in the following examples.
-She donated her millions to Percival.
 We mowed the lawn for Percival.
 The ladder fell on Percival.

11. Thank you