ABSTRACT Every syntactic theory must explain the way human languges align semantic roles with syntactic relations. Human languages consistently map the 'agent' roles associated with the actions 'cut', 'give' and 'see' into the same syntactic relations, despite significant cross-linguistic differences in case morphology, configurationality and the optional expression of verb arguments. Until recently linguists have only issued promissory notes in the form of loosely defined semantic roles to account for cross-linguistic regularities in alignment as well as a host of other syntactic phenomena. It has long been recognized that such accounts remain promissory until linguists, working within various theoritical frameworks, have begun to investigate the way in which semantic roles reflect or derive from the conceptual structure of events. Current research on language acquisition also focuses on the significance of semantic/syntactic alignment for the acquisition of language. This conference will enable these researchers to critically examine the nature of semantic roles and their role in syntactic theory and language acquistion.
