A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics David Crystal

actor–action–goal 9
development which asserts that, when children introduce a new pronunciation,
the new form spreads to all the words in which it would be found in adult
speech – for example, if /l/ and /j/ are at first both pronounced [j], and [l] is later
acquired, it will be used only in adult words which contain /l/, and not /j/. There
is no implication that the change takes place instantaneously. In generative
grammar, the term has also been used to refer to phenomena which affect all the
constituents in a co-ordinate structure; for example, a wh-phrase moves acrossthe-board
in What did Mary make and sell? See also diffusion.
actant (n.) In valency grammar, a functional unit determined by the
valency of the verb; opposed to circonstant. Examples would include subject
and direct object.
action (n.)
see actor–action–goal
active (adj./n.) (1) (act, ACT) A term used in the grammatical analysis of
voice, referring to a sentence, clause, or verb form where, from a semantic
point of view, the grammatical subject is typically the actor, in relation to the
verb, e.g. The boy wrote a letter. ‘Active voice’ (or ‘the active’) is contrasted
with passive, and sometimes with other forms of the verb, e.g. the ‘middle
voice’ in Greek.
(2) See articulation (1).
active knowledge A term used, especially in relation to language learning, for
the knowledge of language which a user actively employs in speaking or writing;
it contrasts with passive knowledge, which is what a person understands in the
speech or writing of others. Native speakers’ passive knowledge of vocabulary
(passive vocabulary), for example, is much greater than their active knowledge
(active vocabulary): people know far more words than they use.
activity (n.) A category used in the classification of predicates in terms of
their aspectual properties (or ‘Aktionsarten’) devised by US philosopher Zeno
Vendler (1921–2004). Activity predicates represent a type of process event
which need not reach a culmination point: walk, for example, is of this type,
being dynamic and atelic in character. In this system they contrast with two
other types of process predicate (accomplishment and achievement) and
with state predicates.
actor–action–goal A phrase used in the grammatical and semantic analysis
of sentence patterns, to characterize the typical sequence of functions within
statements in many languages. In the sentence John saw a duck, for example,
John is the actor, saw the action, and a duck the goal. On the other hand,
languages display several other ‘favourite’ sequences, such as Welsh, where the
unmarked sequence is action–actor–goal. The phrase is widely used, but
not without criticism, as the semantic implications of terms such as ‘actor’
do not always coincide with the grammatical facts, e.g. in The stone moved,
the subject of the sentence is hardly an ‘actor’ in the same sense as John is
above.