Semantic role theory considers roles as a small universal set of unanalyzed entities. It means that formally there are no restrictions on role combinations. We argue that the semantic roles co-occur in verb representations. It means that there are hidden restrictions on role combinations. To demonstrate that a practical and evidence-based approach has been built on in-depth analysis of the largest verb database VerbNet. The consequences of this approach are considered.
@cite_5: We propose an account of linking patterns that does away with intermediary mechanisms such as thematic or actor undergoer hierarchies. Instead, constraints on word classes, defined by both syntactic and semantic criteria, encode generalizations between semantic roles and syntactic arguments. We show that the generalizations a linking theory needs to capture can be modeled via the same mechanisms as other lexical generalizations, using conditions specified within the hierarchy of word classes. Each condition provides a partial specification of the mapping between semantic roles and syntactic arguments. We argue that this constraint-based, verb-class-based view of linking offers several empirical advantages: partial regularities and exceptions are easily accommodated, fine-grained semantic distinctions relevant to linking are countenanced, and cross-cutting similarities between semantic and syntactic verb classes are economically captured.
@cite_8: Arguments en faveur de la resolution de l'ambiguite du concept de role thematique dans la litterature
The second consequence follows from the first one: if it is unable to explain why some frames of roles are valid while the others are not, the obvious conclusion is that roles are not primitive elements in semantic representation. They are not unanalyzable @cite_8 . Treating semantic roles as primitives that are unrelated to one another makes valid role combination purely accidental @cite_5 .