theta roles!!! Linguists please help me!!!!

[Gość: Andzia]

Can anybody explain me in easy way what are theta roles about? Please help me
I really need it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And the second question - please give me any example of traces in
transformational grammar???????? THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Theta roles

[Gość: ines]

Theta roles are the primary elements of theta role theory.
Theta role theory explains the assigment of theta (or thematic) roles to
constituents within a sentence. To assign theta roles to sentence constitents
is to distinguish who is doing what to whom in that sentence.

For example, in the sentence "Steven wrote a book about language." we would
asign the theta role "agent" to Steven and "patient" to the book, since Steven
is performing the action and the book is the recipient of that action.

traces in transformational grammar

[Gość: ines]

Source: www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20031203.htm

[...] Chomsky thus looks for traces of words that have been moved during
transformation:

5.He's not the kind of guy with whom I would want to spend a lot of time with.
6.He's not the kind of guy with whom I would want to spend a lot of time.
7.He's not the kind of guy I would want to spend a lot of time with.

Sentence 5 may not be considered nice, but people say similar things more often
than they admit. Sentence 6 is a bit stilted, while sentence 7 is probably most
common. And since we feel the "with" at the end of sentence 5, we plug it back
in.

[...]

[Gość: Andzia]

Thank you!
Still I don't have clear idea what exactly traces are, is it the free place
which was left by deleting whom or with in the sentences? Am I right? Please
correct me if I misunderstand it.

[Gość: ines]

Yes, you are right.
If a word or phrase is deleted, then only the trace is left.