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In linguistics, an agent noun (in Latin, nomen agentis) is a word that is derived from another word denoting an action, and that identifies an entity that does that action. [1] For example, driver is an agent noun formed from the verb drive .
In generative grammar, this is encoded in terms of the number and type of theta roles the verb takes. The theta role is named by the most prominent thematic relation associated with it. So the three required arguments bear the theta roles named the agent (Reggie) the patient (or theme) (the kibble), and goal/recipient (Fergus).
In certain languages, the agent is declined or otherwise marked to indicate its grammatical role. Modern English does not mark the agentive grammatical role of a noun in a sentence. Although certain nouns do have a permanent trait of agency (runner, kicker, etc.), an agent noun is not necessarily an agent of a sentence: "Jack kicked the runner".
The agent is "Mary," the predicate is "sold" (or rather, "to sell,") the theme is "the book," and the recipient is "John." Another example is how "the book belongs to me" would need two labels such as "possessed" and "possessor" and "the book was sold to John" would need two other labels such as theme and recipient, despite these two clauses ...
For example, in Susan gave Bill the paper, Susan bears both Agent and Source thematic relations, but it only bears one theta role (the external "agent" role). Thematic relations are properties of nouns and noun phrases. Theta roles can be assigned to any argument including noun phrases, prepositional phrases and embedded clauses.
Typically, the situation is denoted by a sentence, the action by a verb in the sentence, and the patient by a noun phrase.. For example, in the sentence "Jack ate the cheese", the cheese is the patient.
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agent, experiencer; subject of a transitive or intransitive verb: he pushed the door and it opened nominative–accusative languages (including marked nominative languages) Nominative case (2) agent; voluntary experiencer: he pushed the door and it opened; she paused active languages: Objective case (1) direct or indirect object of verb