Learn English – word for something that gets “acted upon”

agent-nounsantonymsnounssingle-word-requeststerminology

For instance, say I have two individuals and one is active, the other passive. I know I can call the active person the "actor"—he "acts upon" the passive person. But what do I call the "acted upon"? Is there a single word to describe this?

Best Answer

The term is Patient, which is formed from the same semi-deponent Latin verb (patior, patere, passus 'suffer, endure') as Passive. Most grammatical terminology comes from Latin, so if you want to make up a linguistic term, get a Latin dictionary.

In a prototypical English active transitive sentence,

  • the grammatical relation Subject has a semantic role Agent (< ago, agere, egi, actus 'do'),
    while
  • the grammatical relation Direct Object as the semantic role of Patient.
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