Directed action "V at n" construction
Form
NP
Agent
Verb
at
NP
Goal
Examples
Meaning
An Agent performs some action in the direction of a Goal.
Roles
Agent
The person or thing that is acting.
Goal
What the Agent's action is directed towards.
Frames
Inherits from
Sub-constructions
The people at the front were shouting at him.
The water boy was laughing at me.
He looked at the stains on his hands.
The water boy was laughing at me.
Mr Malik beamed at them in a fatherly manner.
I waved at the receptionist, who had obviously forgotten about me.
She frowned at Paul who affected an air of exaggerated innocence.
Whoever killed Father Reynard shot at us the previous evening.
The gang has struck at several homes in Monaghan.
She came at me like a madwoman.
Researchers toil at new technology that could make big blackouts a quaint historical footnote of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Total warfare, though, aims at the annihilation of the enemy village, the death of all its inhabitants, the burning of the house and its contents and even the uprooting of the crops.
Adenauer had earlier seemed to connive at French control of the Saar, in order to preserve his policy of friendship with Paris.
The word Mahon leapt out at her.
The troubling question nagged at Sheldon Souray.