Semantic Role In Language

A semantic role is a relationship that a participant has with the main verb in the clause. While syntactic analysis focuses on sentences and all the function words in a sentence, the semantic analysis focuses primarily on meaning, i.e. on the proposition expressed in a sentence. A proposition is meaningful and it can be expressed either in different sentences or in parts of sentences. In order to do semantic analysis, we have to distinguish inflection from a proposition. (Kreidler,46) For example:

1a Linda bought a shirt to her mother.

2a Linda buys a shirt to her mother.

These two sentences have the same proposition, i.e. Linda, buy, shirt, and mother. In the first sentence, we see that past tense is added to the proposition; while in the

The predicate may be a verb, an adjective, a proposition, or a noun phrase. All the arguments of a predicate have certain semantic roles and the predicate determines which semantic roles its arguments may take. In his book, Introducing English Semantics, Kreidler displays eight different semantic roles that arguments take. They are explained through verb valency, which is the number of arguments that accompany the predicate.

For example, valency 1 involves performance and experience verbs (Kreidler, 48), such as die, walk, jump, wither, drown, etc. In the examples 1a and 1b predicates walk and run tell what Jack and Jill do. We see that their action does not affect anyone. More specifically, these two predicates (verbs) define the semantic role that the arguments take. Thus, Jack and Jill take the semantic role called the actor.

1a Jack walks.

1b Jill is running.

However, if a predicate denotes a change in the condition of the subject, as in the examples 2a and 2b, the subjects Tom and rose take the semantic role called affected.

2a Tom passed out.

2b The rose withered.

Valency 2 involves affective and effective verbs (Kreidler, 49), such as hit, love, like, cut, build, change, etc. The arguments of these verbs have syntactic functions of subject and

As can be seen from the examples, effected is the role of an argument that starts to exist, or ceases to exist by the action of the predicate.

Furthermore, in the following examples, we see that the argument snake affects the entity, Mary, without any action, and as such takes the semantic role called affecting (4a).Another semantic role would be affected (4b), and it implies that the argument is affected by the entity snake.

4a Mary detests snakes.

4b Mary detests snakes.

Moreover, a linking predicate indicates the relation between two arguments, which take the semantic role called theme and associate. In the example 5a, the theme (Mary) is the role of an argument that is denoted by the predicate, which is stative. The associate is the role of an argument that identifies some other entity (George).

5a Mary is with George.

The place is another semantic role presented by Kreidler. It is the role of an argument that denotes the location of a certain action expressed by the predicate.

6a The book is on the shelf.

Finally, valency 3 involves three entities. For example, in the example 7a, Sarah is an agent, Mike is the affected and a book is an object that