THEMATIC ROLE ASSIGNMENT IN ENGLISH SENTENCES: A QUICK GLANCE AT AN INTERFACE BETWEEN SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

Abstract

This paper examines the role of elements of English sentences by employing the approach of
thematic role assignment. The emphasis is on how the positioning of words and phrases in
syntactic structure helps determine the roles that the referents of NPs play in the situation
described by the sentences. The results reveal that the position of an NP’s determines its
thematic role and. There is a relevance between deep syntactic structure and the assignment
of thematic roles for every NP in the sentence.