Department of English

College of Education for the Humanities/University of Kerbala

Asst. Lect. Rasha Ali

Semantic Roles of Clause Elements

The following sections discuss how clause elements can be described in terms of
semantic functions. These semantic roles or functions explain how participants in an
event are related to the action or state expressed by the verb. The focus will be on
the dictionary meaning; the literal meaning of the words in the sentence.

The Typical Semantic Roles of S, Oi, Od, Cs and Co

1-The most typical semantic role of a subject is AGENTIVE; that is, the animate
being performing or causing the action denoted by the verb:

Ex: John opened the letter

2-The most typical semantic function of the direct object is AFFECTED; ie a

participant (animate or inanimate) which does not cause the happening denoted by
the verb, but is directly involved in some other way:

Ex: Many MPs criticized the Prime Minister

The cat chased the rat

3-The most typical function of the indirect object is that of RECIPIENT; ie an

animate participant being passively implicated by the happening or state:

Ex: I’ve found you a place

I’ve found a place for the magnolia tree Both have the structure SVOA

I’ve found a place for Mr. Jones

Note: The two sentences are grammatically equivalent. However, only ‘Mr. Jones’
can be changed into Oi:

I’ve found Mr. Jones a place

✶I’ve found the magnolia tree a place

This is because a tree is inanimate and cannot adopt a recipient role. With the verb
give, however, there can be exceptions:

I’ve given the bathroom a thorough cleaning.

Here ‘the bathroom’ is recipient indirect object even it is inanimate because of the
verb ‘give’.

4-The role of the subject complement is attribute of the subject.

There are two types:

CURRENT ATTRIBUTE: He’s my brother; He seems unhappy

RESULTING ATTRIBUTE: He became restless; He turned traitor

5-The role of the object complement is that of attribute of the object.

There are two types, too:

CURRENT ATTRIBUTE: I ate the meat cold; I prefer coffee black

RESULTING ATTRIBUTE: They elected him President; He painted the wall blue
All the Semantic Roles of Subject:

1- Agentive: that is, the animate being performing or causing the action denoted by
the verb:

Ex: John opened the letter

2-Instrumental: that is, it expresses the unwitting (generally inanimate) material

cause of an event:

a-Natural phenomenon: The avalanche destroyed several houses.

b-Tool: The key opened the door.

3-Affected: The subject does not perform; it is involved in the action:

a-With intransitive verbs:

Jack fell down

The pencil was lying on the table

b-With intensive verbs:

The pencil was on the table

4-Recipient: Subject can be recipient as explained in the following points:

A-with verbs of possession (have, own, possess, benefit from, etc.,)

EX: They have a big house.

He bought his son a radio----His son has a radio

 B-In relation to perception, verbs can be divided into three sub-groups

-see and hear require a ‘recipient’ subject, for example, ‘He heard a noise.’

-look at and listen to require an ‘agentive’ subject, for example, ‘I listened to

music.’

- taste, smell, and feel have both agentive and recipient subjects, depending on
intention, for example:

Foolishly, he tasted the soup (agentive)

*Foolishly, he tasted the pepper in the soup (recipient)

The adverb foolishly requires the agentive; hence, the second sentence, which can
only be understood in a non-agentive manner, does not make sense.

See/ hear Look at/ listen to Smell/ taste/ feel

S----recipient S------agentive S-----recipient or agentive
He saw a terrible accident. I look at my mum with She felt cold. Recipient
great love.
She felt the fur of her cat. Agentive

C-Verbs indicating a mental state may also require a recipient subject:

I thought you were mistaken (cf. It seemed to me ...)
I liked the play (cf. The play gave me pleasure)

Note: Normally, recipient subjects go with stative verbs. Some of them (notably
have and possess) have no passive form:

They have a beautiful house ↔ *A beautiful house is had by them

*They are having a beautiful house

5-Locative Subject which denotes place.
Ex: This path is swarming with ants. (Ants are swarming all over this path)
The bus holds forty people. (Forty people can sit in the bus)
Note: Some verbs cannot admit the progressive or the passive. So it is incorrect to
say:
*The bus is holding forty people or *Forty people are held by the bus
6-Temporal Subjects denote time.
Note: Temporal subject can usually be replaced with empty ‘it’, the temporal
expression becomes adjunct.

Ex: Tomorrow is my birthday. (It is my birthday tomorrow)

The winter of 1970 was exceptionally mild. (it was exceptionally mild in the winter
of 1970)

Yesterday was great. Yesterday the party was great.

Note: In the last two examples, the word ‘yesterday’ has different functions; in the
first sentence, it is a temporal subject while in the second sentence it is time
adverbial.

7-Eventive Subjects denote events or activities. They could be abstract noun heads
referring to arrangements or activities).

Note: They differ from other types of subjects in permitting intensive

complementation with a time adverbial.

Ex: The concert is on Thursday.

*The concert hall is on Thursday. (Incorrect)

8-Empty ‘it’ subject

Finally, a subject may lack semantic content altogether, and consist only of the
meaningless ‘prop’ word it, used especially with climatic predications:

Ex: It’s raining/snowing, etc. It’s getting dark It’s noisy in here

Note: The ‘prop’ subject it as discussed here must be distinguished from the
‘anticipatory’ it of sentences like It was nice seeing you, where the ‘prop’ subject is
a replacement for a postponed clausal subject (= Seeing you was nice).

Semantic Roles of Direct Object

1-Affected Object is a participant (animate or inanimate) which does not cause the
happening denoted by the verb, but is directly involved in some other way.

Ex: The frost has killed many flowers

2-Locative Object denotes places.

Ex: The horse jumped the fence (‘... jumped over the fence’)

There are similar uses of such verbs as turn, leave, reach, surround, penetrate,
mount, cross, climb.

3-Effected Object is one that refers to something which exists only by virtue of
the activity indicated by the verb.

a-When it gives the sense the X does not do something to Y; X makes Y.

Ex: Baird invented television I’m writing a letter

With agentive subject and an affected object, one may always capture part of the
meaning of a clause (e.g. X destroyed Y) by saying ‘X did something to Y’; but this
does not apply to an effected object — Baird invented television does not imply
‘Baird did something to television’.

b-With cognate object which repeats, partially or wholly, the meaning of the verb.

Ex: He sings a song.

c-With a verbal noun which is preceded by a common verb of general meaning,

such as do, make, have, take, give, etc.

Ex: He did little work that day (‘He worked little that day’)
He made several attempts to contact me (‘He attempted several times to contact
me’)
The prisoner made no comment
He’s having a bath/a holiday (BrE)/a smoke
He took a rest/a vacation (AmE)/a dislike to her/a dive into the water
He gave a jump/a yell, etc.
This construction is often more idiomatic, especially in colloquial English, than an
equivalent construction with an intransitive verb.

Semantic Roles of Indirect Objects

1-Recipient: an animate participant being passively implicated by the happening or

state.

Ex: She sent her son a gift.

2-Affected: This is when ‘give’ (or sometimes related verbs like pay, owe) has an
‘effected’ object as direct object and an ‘affected’ object as indirect object.
Ex: I gave the door a couple of kicks (‘I kicked the door a couple of times’)
I paid her a visit (‘I visited her’)
These clauses, as the paraphrases make clear, are equivalent to clauses with a direct
object as ‘affected’ object.