Theta-absorption

Definition
Theta-absorption is a some morpho-syntactic elements have the capacity of absorbing a theta-role assigned by the verb (stem) to which they are attached, with the effect that that theta-role can not be assigned to its regular position.

Example
Passive morphology is an example, and clitics have been argued to absorb a theta-role as well.

Links

 * Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics