SEMANTIC ROLES

• Grammatical roles are often used to describe the direction of action (e.g., subject, object, indirect object).
  
  
• Semantic roles, also known as case relations, are used to make sense of the participants in an event (e.g., "who did what to whom").
  
  

  Role	Description
  Agent	cause or inhibitor of action
  Patient/Theme	undergoer of the action
  Instrument	how the action is accomplished
  Goal	to whom the action is directed
  Result	result or outcome of the action
  Location	location or place of the action

  
  
• Example:
  
  
  • "The doctor examined the patient's knees"