Semantic roles
Syntactic Structure
The thief killed husband and wife with a gun.
-Clause Structure: SVO(A)
-Clause Pattern: SVO
-Lexical Pattern: kill<Subj-NP, Obj-NP>
Semantic structure
-The specification of the semantic relations that exist between a verb and its complements
-Semantic Relations = Semantic Roles
-Why? — The pizza ate the boy
3 levels of generality
1. Verb-specific Semantic Roles
2. Semantic Roles / Thematic Relations / θ Roles
3. Semantic Macroroles
1. Verb-specific Semantic Roles
[The thief] killed [the couple]
killer victim/killed
[Sam] is running
runner
2. Thematic relations (θ Roles)
Generalisations across verb-specific roles (Agent, Patient, etc.)
[The thief] killed [the couple]
Agent Patient
kill<NP-Subj-Agent, NP-Od-Patient>
[Sam] is running
Agent
run<NP-Subj-Agent>
3. Semantic Macroroles
Generalisations across thematic relations (actor, undergoer)
[The thief] killed [the couple]
Actor Undergoer
[Sam] is running
Actor