What is patient as a semantic role?

Patient is a semantic role that is usually the surface object of the verb in a sentence.

Some linguists define the patient and affected semantic roles in slightly different ways.

Longacre 1983 155–156 (following Chafe) defines a patient as the entity

• predicated with a state or location
• undergoing a change of state or location, or
• which is possessed, acquired or exchanged.

Larson 1984 199–203 defines the affected role as the

• thing that is affected by an event
• person or thing that undergoes a process, or
• person who experiences an event.

• The entity predicated with a state or location:

  • The door is open.
  • John is at home.

• The entity undergoing a change of state or location:

  • He opened the door.

  • The door swung open.

  • He threw the ball across the yard.

  • The ball rolled off the table.

• The entity which is possessed, acquired, or exchanged:

  • John has a new book.

  • John bought a new book.

  • John gave Mary a new book.

• The thing that is affected by an event:

  • The dog ate the meat.

  • The tree fell on the house.

• The person or thing that undergoes a process:

  • The water evaporated.
  • Mary became sad.

• The person who experiences an event:

  • John smelled the smoke.
  • Mary saw the snake.

• What is a semantic role?

Larson 1984 199–203

Longacre 1983 155

Context for this page:

• Concept module: patient
• In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): P
• In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
• In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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