For example, passives are much less common in Spanish because your can start the sentence with the object if you want it to be the topic. Some languages have far less rigid word order than English, and passives are less common. ![]() While English has very strict rules that subjects must come before objects, passives are very common. There are other ways of doing this, like what's called "fronting" by linguists ( Oh, the movie Titanic, John saw), "pseudo-clefting" ( It was the movie Titanic that John saw). So the passive in English is one way to "bend" #1 in order to satisfy #2. The topic preferably appears at the beginning of the sentence.The agent or experiencer is normally the subject, and subjects must appear at the beginning of the sentence.So in English sentences we have two sets of rules that often clash: What is the function of the passive? Well, another fact about languages is that sentences typically start with a reference to something that people have already been talking about in the conversation, and then this is followed by new information about that thing. The experiencer appears as a prepositional phrase ( by Mary), which is actually optional (you can say The school play was seen).The verb appears in a special form ( was seen) that's specialized for passive sentences.The subject is a theme (or other "weak" role), even though the verb seen has an experiencer argument that would normally be the subject.So The school play was seen by Mary is a passive sentence, which has three characteristics: The passive voice is a rule that allows you to construct a sentence where the agent or experiencer, instead of being the subject like those normally are, are "demoted" from subject position, and something that would normally be an object is promoted up there. Well, with one huge exception, which is that languages have rules that allow you to change which role can go in which part of the sentence. The most stereotypical rule is that agents appear as subjects while patients appear as objects in a sentence like Tom kicked Bob, we say that Tom is the subject of the sentence and Bob is the object, and because of this Tom has to be the agent (the guy doing the kicking) and Bob the patient (the guy getting kicked), and not the other way around. Well, in English (and other languages), there is a system of rules that determines which role can occur in which part of a sentence. In Stephanie gave the book to Mary, the recipient is Mary.Īnd so on different linguists have different lists or roles, and there's some disagreement about those definitions, but you get the idea. Recipient: receives something in an action. ![]() In The door opened, the theme is the door in Mary saw the school play, we also have the school play as a theme. ![]() Theme: a bit harder to explain, but it's basically the thing to which something happens but is not affected.Patient: the person or thing that is affected by an action done by an agent.In Mary saw the school play, Mary is the experiencer. Experiencer: the person or being that experiences something.For example, in John ran a mile, John is the agent. Arguments play a variety of roles, including (but not limited to): In human languages, sentences are typically headed by verbs, and the verbs are said to have arguments: the things involved in the action or situation that the verb describes.
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