Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

100 ROBERT D. VAN VALIN, JR.

functions as a predicate in its own right (hence the name), licensing its own

argument. In this case both the preposition and its object are unrecoverable

and therefore are high in information content; they function as a single

complex information unit and cannot be broken up under normal cir­

cumstances, as the ungrammaticality of (89c) indicates. In terms of the

assignment of pragmatic functions, in the unmarked case, focus may be

assigned either to the object of a non-predicative NP or to the PP as a

whole, while it must be assigned to a predicative PP as a unit, as in (89d).

It is possible to strand a predicative preposition, but the pragmatic

restrictions on it are very different from those governing the sentences in

(89). First, the neutral WH-word for NPs, what, cannot be used; this is

shown by the ungrammaticality of the unstranded version of (89c), *In what

did John eat breakfast? Rather, only the NP-modifier WH-word which is

possible, as in (90a), and stranding is possible, as in (90b).

(90) a. In which room did John eat breakfast?

b. Which room did John eat breakfast in?

A question like (89d) requires no special context, whereas one like (90b)

requires a context in which the locations of John's activities are being dis­

cussed, so that what is presupposed is "John does specific activities in

specific rooms"; in this context, the preposition is presupposed and there­

fore recoverable, just like a non-predicative preposition. Hence whether or

not preposition stranding in a WH-question is possible is not simply a mat­

ter of syntax; it is, rather, an issue of recoverability of information, either

from lexical information or from context.

6. The structure of complex sentences

6.1 General considerations

In section 1.1 the contrast between relational and non-relational syntactic

structure was discussed, and the question of the structure of complex sen­

tences is primarily one of non-relational structure. The units of the LSC

play a central role in the RRG theory of clause linkage, as they are the units

which constitute the building blocks of complex sentences, and given

RRG's very different approach to clause-internal relational structure, it is

perhaps not surprising that the RRG theory of interclausal relational struc­

ture diverges from the standard analyses.