SRL involves several steps, starting with syntactic parsing to identify the structure of sentences. The next step is to assign semantic roles to each word or phrase, such as identifying which entity is performing an action (the agent), which entity is affected by the action (the patient), and the nature of the action itself. In nanotechnology texts, these roles might include identifying a particular nanoparticle as the agent in a chemical reaction or a biological system as the patient affected by the nanoparticles.
