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Pre Position
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Reason preposition
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Adverbials
invitation
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Actant
المؤلف:
Bronwen Martin and Felizitas Ringham
المصدر:
Dictionary of Semiotics
الجزء والصفحة:
P18
2025-05-07
71
Actant
An actant is someone or something who or which accomplishes or undergoes an act. It may be a person, anthropomorphic or zoomorphic agent, a thing or an abstract entity.
Situated on the level of narrative syntax, the term describes a narrative function such as that of subject or object. In the sentence 'Prison officers vote for work to rule which could bring jails to a standstill", 'work to rule' in the first part of the sentence functions as actant/object of the prison officers' quest while 'which' (referring to the same 'work to rule') in the second part of the sentence functions as actant/subject capable of bringing about a transformation. In the fairy-tale Sleeping Beauty, the prince functions as actant/subject in his own quest to marry the beautiful princess and as actant/helper in the quest to break the spell of the nasty fairy godmother.
Actant has to be distinguished from actor, a term used when describing the discursive organization.
See also actor.