In linguistics the term diathesis alternation or verb alternation refers to the fact that verbs can be used in different subcategorization frame

Subcategorization frame

In syntax, a subject within linguistics, the subcategorization frame of a word is defined to be the number and types of syntactic arguments that it co-occurs with...

s where they slightly change their semantic meaning. It is a hard problem for theoretical linguistics

Theoretical linguistics

Theoretical linguistics is the branch of linguistics that is most concerned with developing models of linguistic knowledge. The fields that are generally considered the core of theoretical linguistics are syntax, phonology, morphology, and semantics...

 how to encode constraints on the diathesis alternation of a specific verb to a lexicon

Lexicon

In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...

. It is also claimed that the manner in which verbs undergo diathesis alternation can be used to identify the semantic class

Semantic class

A semantic class contains words that share a semantic property. Semantic classes may intersect. The intersection of female and young can be girl.See also: Semantic feature, Categorization, semantic field...

 they belong to e.g. in a machine learning

Machine learning

Machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, is a scientific discipline concerned with the design and development of algorithms that allow computers to evolve behaviors based on empirical data, such as from sensor data or databases...

task.

Examples

• Fred ate the pizza vs. Fred ate
• Mary broke the window vs. The window broke
• Mary presented the flowers to John vs. Mary presented John with the flowers