linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...

, a grammatical agent is the

thematic relation In certain theories of linguistics, thematic relations, also known as semantic roles, are the various roles that a noun phrase may play with respect to the action or state described by a governing verb, commonly the sentence's main verb. For ex ...

of the cause or initiator to an event. The agent is a

semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

concept distinct from the subject of a sentence as well as from the topic. Whereas the subject is determined syntactically, primarily through word order, the agent is determined through its relationship to the action expressed by the

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

. For example, in the sentence "The little girl was bitten by the dog", "girl" is the subject, but "dog" is the agent. The word "agent" comes from the present participle ''agens, agentis'' ("the one doing") of the Latin verb ''agere'', to "do" or "make".

Theory

Typically, the situation is denoted by a sentence, the action by a

in the sentence, and the agent by a

noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...

. For example, in the sentence "Jack kicked the ball", ''Jack'' is the agent and "the ball" is the

patient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other heal ...

. In certain languages, the agent is declined or otherwise marked to indicate its grammatical role. Modern English does not mark the agentive grammatical role of a noun in a sentence. Although certain nouns do have a permanent trait of agency (

agent noun In linguistics, an agent noun (in Latin, ) is a word that is derived from another word denoting an action, and that identifies an entity that does that action. For example, "driver" is an agent noun formed from the verb "drive". Usually, ''deriv ...

: runner, kicker, etc.), an agent noun is not necessarily an agent of a sentence: "Jack kicked the runner". For many people, the notion of

agency Agency may refer to: Organizations * Institution, governmental or others ** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients ** Employment agency, a business that ...

is easy to grasp intuitively but difficult to define: typical qualities that a grammatical agent often has are that it has volition, is sentient or perceives, causes a change of state, or moves. The linguist David Dowty included these qualities in his definition of a Proto-Agent, and proposed that the nominal with the most elements of the Proto-Agent and the fewest elements of the Proto-Patient tends to be treated as the agent in a sentence. This solves problems that most semanticists have with deciding on the number and quality of thematic roles. For example, in the sentence ''His energy surprised everyone'', ''His energy'' is the agent, even though it does not have most of the typical agent-like qualities such as perception, movement, or volition. Even Dowty's solution fails for verbs expressing relationships in time: (1) April precedes May. vs: (2) May follows April. Here what is agent and what is patient must be specified for each individual verb. The grammatical agent is often confused with the subject, but the two notions are quite distinct: the ''agent'' is based explicitly on its relationship to the action or event expressed by the

(e.g. "He who kicked the ball"), whereas the ''subject'' is based on a more ''formal title'' using the theory of the information flow (e.g. "Jack kicked the ball"). In the sentence "The boy kicked the ball", "the boy" is the agent ''and'' the subject. However, when the sentence is rendered in the

passive voice A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or '' patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing ...

, "The ball was kicked by the boy", "the ball" is the grammatical subject, but "the boy" is still the agent. Many sentences in English and other

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...

have the agent as subject. The use of some transitive verbs denoting strictly reciprocal events may involve a conflation of agent and subject. In the sentence "John met Sylvia", for example, though both "John" and "Sylvia" would equally meet Dowty's definition of a Proto-Agent, the co-agent "Sylvia" is downgraded to patient because it is the direct object of the sentence.Givóm, Tom. 2001. ''Syntax: An Introduction. Volume 1''. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 131.

References

External links

agent (grammar)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Agent (Grammar) Thematic roles Grammatical categories Semantics Syntax–semantics interface

Theory

See also

References

External links