Thematic role

Thematic role is a linguistic notion, which may refer to:

• Theta role (in syntax or at the syntax-semantics interface), the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure—the number and type of noun phrases—required syntactically by a particular verb
• Thematic relation (in semantics), a term to express the role that a noun phrase plays with respect to the action or state described by a governing verb

Look up thematic role in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

However, it should not be confused with the use of thematic with reference to the stem ("the theme") of an inflected word, as in thematic vowel.