expressed by the verb (e.g. "He who kicked the ball"), whereas the subject is based on a more formal title using the theory of the information flow (e.g. "Jack kicked the ball"). In the sentence "The boy kicked the ball", the boy is the agent and the subject. However, when the sentence is rendered in the passive voice, "The ball was kicked by the boy", the ball is the grammatical subject, but the boy is still the agent. Many sentences in English and other Indo-European languages have the agent as subject. The use of some transitive verbs denoting strictly reciprocal events may involve a conflation of agent and subject. In the sentence "John met Sylvia", for example, though both John and Sylvia would equally meet Dowty's definition of a Proto-Agent, the co-agent Sylvia is downgraded to patient because it is the direct object of the sentence. See also Active–stative language English passive voice Passive voice Patient (grammar) References External links agent (grammar) Thematic roles Grammatical categories Semantics Syntax–semantics interface