Patient (grammar)

Patient (grammar)

In linguistics, a grammatical patient, also called the target or undergoer, is the participant of a situation upon whom an action is carried out. A patient as differentiated from a theme must undergo a change in state. A theme is denoted by a stative verb, where a patient is denoted by a dynamic verb. At the very least, there is debate to this effect. Also, patient is the name of the thematic relation with the above definition.