# Actancy

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Actancy
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Actancy.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actancy
> Source revision: 1254721655
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

**Actancy** ([French](/source/French_language): *l'actance*) is a term in [syntax](/source/Syntax) and [grammar](/source/Grammar) describing the relationship between a [verb](/source/Verb) [predicate](/source/Predicate_(grammar)) and its nominal arguments.[1] It attempts to study and describe *[actants](/source/Actant#In_linguistics)* or clausal components which identify the nominal participants in a verbal process which may be the [subject](/source/Subject_(grammar)), [direct object](/source/Direct_object), or the [indirect object](/source/Indirect_object) of the verb. *Actants* is a [French](/source/French_language) term coined by [Lucien Tesnière](/source/Lucien_Tesni%C3%A8re),[2] and so its usage has been extended into [English](/source/English_language) although its usage is more common in continental [linguistics](/source/Linguistics) than in English language linguistics. In French, the term *l'actance* has the more general meaning of the study of verb arguments and is not as narrow as the English loan.

In the work of [Gilbert Lazard](/source/Gilbert_Lazard), the concept of actancy is restricted only to the [morphosyntactic](/source/Morphosyntactic) level of linguistic analysis.[3][4]

## See also

- [Verb argument](/source/Verb_argument)

- [Verb phrase](/source/Verb_phrase)

- [French grammar](/source/French_grammar)

- [Lucien Tesnière](/source/Lucien_Tesni%C3%A8re)

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Lazard, Gilbert (1998). [*Actancy*](https://books.google.com/books?id=TvEbY0BvGtIC&q=actancy). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. xi. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [3-11-015670-9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/3-11-015670-9).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** Matthews, P.H. (2006). *Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics with Chinese Translation*. Shanghai: Oxford University Press and Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. p. 7. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [7-5446-0179-X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/7-5446-0179-X).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Lazard, G. (1995) *[Typological research on actancy: the Paris RIVALC group]* [p.169](https://books.google.com/books?id=n2F3KfTWX_AC&pg=PA167). Clarendon Press.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** Lazard, Gilbert. *Actancy*, p.66, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2011. [https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110808100](https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110808100)

This grammar-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information.

- [v](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Grammar-stub)
- [t](/source/Template_talk%3AGrammar-stub)
- [e](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:EditPage/Template:Grammar-stub)

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Actancy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actancy) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actancy?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.