Explanation
A semantic role describes how a participant relates to the event or state evoked by a predicate, for example as agent, patient, experiencer, instrument, source, or goal. Roles are not permanent properties of entities: the same person can be an actor, affected participant, or perceiver in different events. Nor are roles identical with subject and object, since grammatical functions vary across constructions. The conceptual movement begins with the event model, identifies the kind of participation, and only then examines its syntactic realisation. Role analysis thereby connects meaning and grammar without collapsing the two levels.
Movement of thought
1. The predicate and the event or state frame it evokes are identified first. 2. Each participant is examined for the particular manner of involvement in that frame. 3. Diagnostics such as causation, change, perception, motion, and possession refine the role. 4. Semantic assignment is explicitly separated from subjecthood, objecthood, and case. 5. Constructional alternations reveal which roles persist and which interpretations shift.
Scientific use case
Semantics, syntax, typology, and natural-language processing use roles to analyse argument structure, case marking, and alternations. Reliable annotation requires explicit diagnostics and a method for handling role clusters and borderline cases.
Example
In two sentences the same person is first the intentional opener of a door and then the person upon whom the door closes. The noun phrase may look syntactically similar, but its participation in the event differs.
Counterexample
A constituent is not an agent merely because it appears as grammatical subject. In perception, state, or passive constructions the subject may bear another role; diagnosis must begin with the event described.
Distinction
Distinguish semantic roles from grammatical functions, case forms, theory-specific thematic relations, and frame elements. These notions overlap, but models differ in granularity and in how tightly roles are tied to individual predicates.
Effect on thought and perception
Semantic roles organise events by modes of participation and make it possible to compare how languages grammatically perspectivise similar configurations. They support understanding across changing sentence forms.
Resonance
A participant receives its role not in isolation but through its relation to action, change, and other participants. Event meaning emerges as a configuration of directed relationships.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Semantic Role“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-133-013. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-133-013The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
Jespersen’s discussion of active and passive constructions distinguishes the participants in a described situation from their grammatical presentation. That is relevant history for semantic roles because changing a sentence’s subject does not necessarily change who acts or who is affected. The Atlas can ask which participant relation remains stable across alternate descriptions and which relation is introduced by the grammar or context. A subject is not automatically an agent, and an object is not automatically a patient. Jespersen’s account belongs to an earlier grammatical vocabulary, rather than a complete later inventory of thematic roles. It provides a historical conceptual witness while the English technical label, competing role systems and language-specific evidence require additional research.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
Semantic roles describe participant relations in an event and must be separated from subject, object, and discourse prominence; active-passive alternations provide a counter-test.
References for the historical section
- Otto Jespersen, The Philosophy of Grammar, work first published 1924; inspected later printing with November 1934 afterword, exact printing year unresolved · Chapter XII, Object, Active and Passive, printed pp. 157ff.
Selected historical witness, not a complete genealogy or a first English attestation. Atlas comparisons and applications are original editorial interpretations. OCR of a later printing containing a 1934 afterword. The catalogue’s 1924 date identifies the work’s first publication, not the inspected copy. Historical judgments about languages and social groups require critical distance.