Re: "do" captures agent+subject

Aha, found the original..................

John Cowan wrote:

> Henrik Theiling scripsit:
>
> >   Peter dries.
> >   Peter falls.
> >   Peter sneezes.
> >   Peter speaks.
> >   Peter runs.
> >
> > In English, you could argue that for each of these sentences, the
> > answer to the question 'What does Peter *do*?' is the verb.  But this
> > is simply because Peter is the subject of each of these sentences and
> > by asking for the doer, you ask for the subject.
>
> I don't agree.  ...... "What does X do?" marks X as both subject and
agent,
> and if either is not true, it doesn't work.
>
Apparently we agree.  "What does X do?" IMO(lect) would only apply to the
last two, and many other trans.verbs (...sells cars, writes books etc);
"What happened to X?" to the first two;  either might be appropriate to
sneeze, cough etc., where they might be a question of volition.

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