substantivagent

Substantivagent is a linguistic term used to describe the function of a noun phrase that denotes the doer of the action in a clause. The word is formed from substantiv (noun) and agent, emphasizing that the element is a noun form serving as the agent of the verb. In grammatical descriptions, the substantivagent is the nominal element that carries the semantic role of the agent.

In typical active clauses, the substantivagent aligns with the grammatical subject, representing who performs the action. In many languages, especially those with flexible word order or with passive constructions, the agent may be relected in a by-phrase or may be omitted altogether, depending on emphasis and allowed syntax. Some languages mark agents with case or agreement, while others rely on word order alone to signal agency. The term is primarily used in teaching and descriptive grammar to distinguish the noun-based agent from other thematic roles such as patient or theme.

Substantivagent should not be confused with agent nouns, which are nouns formed from verbs to denote a person who performs the action (for example, teacher, painter). The substantivagent refers to the syntactic role of any noun phrase that acts as the agent, regardless of whether the noun is a derived agent noun or a more general noun.

Examples help clarify the concept. In English, The farmer harvested the wheat. Here The farmer is the substantivagent in the active clause. In The wheat was harvested by the farmer, the same noun phrase remains the agent, though the syntactic position and marking may differ across languages. Substantivagent is thus a useful label for analyzing who performs the action in a sentence.