Agent is most directly associated with the passive by-phrase (Passives), but also permits other construals:

• the decisive vote by the City Council 001

• Agent↝Gestalt:

  • the decisive vote of the City Council 002

  • the City Council's decisive vote 003

  • the president's achievements 008

  • they needed Joan's help 004

When two symmetric Agents are collected in a single NP functioning as a set, it is marked as a Whole construal:

• There was a war between France and Spain. (Agent↝Whole) 006

• a discussion among the board members (Agent↝Whole) 007

Secondary agents#

Many event predicates license multiple participants acting in complementary ways and portrayed as having independent agency. In such cases, an Agent scene role is allowed for either participant, even if one (typically realized in a syntactically more prominent position, such as subject) is perhaps understood as slightly more agentive:

• I fought in a war against the Germans. (Agent↝Beneficiary) 009

• a match versus Serena Williams (Agent↝Beneficiary) 012

• I talked/argued with my roommate about cleaning duties. (Agent↝Ancillary) 010

In other cases, a second "extra" participant may be portrayed as accompanying the first in the event—possibly acting volitionally, and possibly implying some sort of additional social interaction or alignment of goals, but not strictly necessary for that kind of event to take place. Together_with serves as a diagnostic for these participants, which are labeled simply Ancillary.

• (Together) with my roommate, I argued that it was unfair of the landlord to increase our rent. (Ancillary) 011

See also: Org, Originator, Source, Stimulus, Ancillary, SocialRel