The Role and Reference Grammar Analysis of Three Place Predicates

• Published in: Suvremena lingvistika Vol. 33; no. 1; pp. 31 - 63
• Main Author: Van Valin, Robert D , Jr
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-01-2007
• ISSN: 0586-0296

This paper presents the Role & Reference Grammar [RRG] (Van Valin 2005) analysis of three-place predicates. RRG takes a primarily lexical approach to the analysis of three-place predicates & the coding alternations they enter into. There is an interesting range of typological variation with respect to how languages realize three-place predicates morphosyntactically, & this will be a major focus of this discussion. RRG is a mono-stratal theory, & therefore analyses involving underlying syntactic representations & movement rules are excluded in principle. Hence some of the phenomena associated with these predicates present an interesting challenge for monostratal theories like RRG. The languages to be discussed include English, Croatian, German, Indonesian, Kinyarwanda, Yaqui, Dyirbal, Saliba & Kayardild. Figures, References. Adapted from the source document