Affected participant
Who or what does it happen to?
Meaning
An affected participant is someone or something that an event changes, moves, creates, uses up, or otherwise affects. It may receive an action or undergo a change without anyone doing it on purpose. Languages can show this role through endings or word order, but some have no special marker for it. Unlike Doer or cause, this participant is on the receiving or changing side of the event.
How to spot it
Ask who or what is changed, moved, made, used up, or otherwise affected, even if no doer is named.
In your native language
With verbs such as cut or move, English usually puts the affected participant after the verb as the object, the person or thing the action is directed at. Pronouns used as objects have forms such as me, him, and them. In a sentence describing a change without a named doer, the affected participant can instead be the subject.
Mia cut the bread.
The bread is affected and comes after the verb as the object.
The noise woke me.
Me, not I, is the object form.
The ice melted.
The ice changes, but it is the subject; no doer is named.
In your learning language
An affected participant often appears as the object, the person or thing an action is directed at, or as a short object pronoun such as lo or la. An object referring to an identifiable person normally takes a before it. In events describing a change without a named doer, the affected participant can instead be the subject.
Pablo lavó los platos.
Pablo washed the dishes.
Vi a Carmen en el mercado.
I saw Carmen at the market.
A marks the named person as the object; Carmen is not a recipient here.
El vaso se rompió.
The glass broke.
The glass is the subject and undergoes the change; no doer is named.
Learners whose language marks all objects with the same ending may omit a before a person or add it before ordinary things. Learners whose language strongly associates subjects with doers may miss that a subject can undergo a change.