Thematic role

The term thematic role is a synonym of semantic role or thematic relation, popularized by Chomsky (1981), although mostly in its abbreviated form Θ-role.

Thematic roles are semantic roles in a system which takes location and movement through space as (some of) the key notion in the interpretation of natural language sentences.

Example
the sentence Don gives Ed a donut is about a relocation or transfer of a donut (the Theme) from Don (the Source) to Ed (the Goal). In syntactic theory thematic roles are usually referred to as Theta-roles with not much concern for their content. See Thematic theory.

Synonyms

 * semantic role
 * thematic relation
 * Θ-role (Theta role)
 * case: deep case, case role, case relation
 * semantic function
 * kāraka

Links
Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics