Theta roles are the names of the participant roles associated with a predicate: the predicate may be a verb, an adjective, a preposition, or a noun. If an object is in motion or in a steady state as the speakers perceives the state, or it is the topic of discussion, it is called a theme. The participant is usually said to be an argument of the predicate. In generative grammar, a theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure—the number and type of noun phrases—required syntactically by a particular verb. For example, the verb put requires three arguments (i.e., it is trivalent).
The formal mechanism for implementing a verb's argument structure is codified as theta roles. The verb put is said to "assign" three theta roles. This is coded in a theta grid associated with the lexical entry for the verb. The correspondence between the theta grid and the actual sentence is accomplished by means of a bijective filter on the grammar known as the theta criterion. Early conceptions of theta roles include (Fillmore called theta roles "cases") and .
Theta roles are prominent in government and binding theory and the standard theory of transformational grammar.
The term "theta role" is often used interchangeably with the term thematic relations (particularly in mainstream generative grammar—for an exception see ). The reason for this is simple: theta roles typically reference thematic relations. In particular, theta roles are often referred to by the most prominent thematic relation in them. For example, a common theta role is the primary or external argument. Typically, although not always, this theta role maps to a noun phrase which bears an agent thematic relation. As such, the theta role is called the "agent" theta role. This often leads to confusion between the two notions. The two concepts, however, can be distinguished in a number of ways.
Thematic relations express the semantic relations that the entities denoted by the noun phrases bear towards the action or state denoted by the verb.
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En linguistique, le rôle sémantique sert à décrire le sens qui s'attache à un groupe nominal par rapport au procès exprimé par le verbe au sein d'une phrase. La notion de rôle sémantique a été développée dans le cadre de théories linguistiques s'efforçant d'articuler les composantes syntaxiques et sémantiques du langage. Elle est liée aux notions de fonction syntaxique et de cas, sans se confondre avec elles : alors que les fonctions et les cas sont définis par la syntaxe, les rôles sémantiques en sont en principe indépendants.
Theta roles are the names of the participant roles associated with a predicate: the predicate may be a verb, an adjective, a preposition, or a noun. If an object is in motion or in a steady state as the speakers perceives the state, or it is the topic of discussion, it is called a theme. The participant is usually said to be an argument of the predicate. In generative grammar, a theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure—the number and type of noun phrases—required syntactically by a particular verb.
La valence est un trait syntaxique concernant principalement les verbes mais aussi quelques noms et adjectifs. On nomme valence d'un tel terme le nombre d'actants qu'il peut recevoir ou qu'il doit recevoir pour être saturé, c'est-à-dire fournir un syntagme grammaticalement correct. La théorie de la valence a surtout été développée par le linguiste français Lucien Tesnière qui a popularisé la métaphore de la valence chimique, empruntée à Charles Peirce. Lucien Tesnière compare le verbe à .