What is the Semantic Role of "Jessica" in the following sentence:

Jane gave the flowers to Jessica

Question

What is the Semantic Role of "Jessica" in the following sentence:

Jane gave the flowers to Jessica

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The question asks for the Semantic Role of Jessica in the sentence: 'Jane gave the flowers to Jessica.'

Option 1: Agent. The agent is the entity that performs the action. Here, Jane is the one who performs the action of giving, so Jane is the agent, not Jessica. Therefore this option is incorrect.

Option 2: Patient. The patient (also called Theme) is the entity that is affected by the action or that undergoes the change. In this sentence, the flowers are the thing being given and thus fit the patient/theme role, not Jessica. So this choice is not accurate for Jessica's SRL.

Option 3: Recipient. The recipient is the person or entity who receives something as a result of the action. Jessica receives the flowers, since the verb 'gave' includes a recipient in the PP complement 'to Jessica.' This aligns with the semantic role of recipient, making this the correct choice for Jessica's SRL.

Option 4: Subject. In semantic roles, 'subject' is not a canonical SRL like Agent or Recipient; it is a syntactic label more than a semantic one. Using 'subject' here would obscure the actual semantic function of Jessica, so this option is misleading and incorrect.

Option 5: Object. While 'the flowers' is an object (a direct object) of the verb 'gave,' Jessica is not the object of the action; she is the recipient of the flowers. Therefore labeling Jessica as 'Object' is inaccurate.

To summarize, Jessica serves as the recipient of the transferred item in this ditransitive construction, while the flowers are the direct object (patient/theme) and Jane is the agent. The other options misidentify Jessica’s semantic role either by confusing agent with recipient, treating Jessica as the recipient but under an inappropriate label, or by assigning a non-standard SRL. The best-fit semantic role for Jessica is Recipient.

LIN 001Y A01-A12 SQ 2025 Semantics HW

What is the Semantic Role of "Jessica" in the following sentence: Jane gave the flowers to Jessica

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