Causal Agent

Roles: agent, patient, instrument, effect, intention, power, transformation

The folk model of a willful entity that causes change: an agent acts on a patient, producing an effect. The agent may heal, destroy, reveal, or reshape — what matters is that causation is attributed to a purposeful being rather than to impersonal process. Key logic: the agent chooses to act, could have acted otherwise, and bears responsibility for the outcome. Source domain for personification metaphors where abstract forces (time, fate, nature) are cast as intentional actors.

As Source Frame (1)

• Time Is a Changer → time-and-temporality