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What is the difference between 'actor' and 'subject' in systemic functional grammar?
In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), a clause is analysed for transitivity in different ways depending on the type of process the main verb represents. Let's consider the following clauses:
[I] ...
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Assigning thematic roles
Theme. An agent is, by definition, sentient. Non-sentient arguments are commonly themes.
2-4. Experiencer. Living and sleeping can be argued to be states, rather than actions.
Patient or theme. ...
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Why "Location" but not "Theme"?
"...is a big city" is a copula construction. The NP in it does not refer to an entity, it is used as a predicate. There is no event participant behind this NP. Therefore, I would not expect ...
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Question about linguistic terms, semantic roles
It is "subject", because you're set up the question with a syntactic criterion, not a semantic one, and that syntactic frame (for English) identifies "subject". If you want a name ...
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Accepted
What is the semantic term for the things that the single arguments of reflexive and reciprocal verbs stand for?
I cannot answer for reflexives, but for reciprocals the term reciprocants is often used. A problem with this term (and the term reciprocity) is that it is used for both meaning and form. For this ...
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Semantic arguments of nouns
Actually, "alcohol" is an argument of the verb "ban" (not the noun "ban"). Note the interpretation of "sudden" as adverbial in "a sudden alcohol ban". The NP is a nominalization of a sentence whose ...
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Languages with nominalized verbs that specify the thematic relation of its possessor
EDIT: Re-reading your question, I've just realised you were looking for a difference on the nominalised word itself, not in the syntax of the links to the subject and object of the action, but I'll ...
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Are there any languages that distinguish the thematic roles of theme and patient?
Often, patient and theme are not distinguished, but in some systems they are. If so, that is just a matter of the fine-grainedness of a role system. If they are distinguished, "Theme" is ...
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What is the difference between 'actor' and 'subject' in systemic functional grammar?
I thought a shorter answer might help some people:
The actor (or agent) performs the action (upon the patient).
The subject is what the predicate gets filed under.
With a verb in active voice, the ...
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