Waiting

A Protagonist delays a planned action because they cannot or do not want to proceed until an Expected_event occurs. The Expected_event may be evoked by reference to a Salient_entity that participates in it. If a Salient_entity is expressed, the Expected_event is typically the arrival of the Salient_entity at the Place where the Protagonist is located. The cat waited on top of the washer as Elmer popped the lid off the can of cat food and then pounded the can's contents onto the plate The family was furious that their 84-year-old dad had to wait 52 hours in the emergency room. Although in both frames a Protagonist/Agent is not performing some desired action for some period of time, the use of wait.v in this frame is different from that in Holding_off_on in that Waiting prominently portrays a future event that will allow the Protagonist to proceed (with doing something), whereas Holding_off_on does not necessarily imply that there is some event or state-of-affairs that will allow the Agent to proceed, rather focussing on the action that the Agent is not yet taking.