@agent #

Universal #

The @agent feature is used for arguments that are deep subjects of their governor. A deep subject is an argument that is subject in the base construction but has been demoted in redistribution of argument position. Typical cases are passive, causative, and impersonal constructions.

passive (English)

Impersonal (French)

It makes sense to analyze the deep subject of an impersonal construction as comp:obj and not subj, because:

• the verb agrees with the dummy subject il and not with the deep subject
• the deep subject is pronominalized by an object pronoun: il en existe
• French has a quite strong SVO order. Note that in UD the dummy subject is analyzed has a pure expl and the deep subject as the subject.

Causative (French) The demoted subject in French causatives can be comp:obj or comp:obl.