Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

112 ROBERT D. VAN VALIN, JR.

tactic linkage realizing it should be tighter than the tightest syntactic linkage

realizing looser semantic relations.^56

6.4 Operators in complex sentences

In the contrasting of clausal cosubordinate linkages with coordinate and

subordinate linkages, it was pointed out that the dependent clauses in

cosubordination lack subject inflection on the verb, while it is found on the

verbs in the linked clauses in coordinate and subordinate constructions, as

in the Kewa examples in (91) and the Chuave examples in (92). The depen­

dent verbs in (91b) and (92b) also lack inflection for the operators tense

(91b) and mood (IF) (92b). Cosubordination was described initially as a

kind of "dependent coordination," and it is now possible to characterize the

nature of the dependence more precisely: in a cosubordinate linkage at a

given level of juncture, the linked units are dependent upon the matrix unit

for expression of one or more of the operators for that level. This is clear in

the Kewa example in (91b), in the Chuave example in (92b), and in the

Amele examples in (94)-(96). It is also found in a more subtle way in the

Mparntwe Arrernte examples (Wilkins 1988) in (106).

(106) a. Artwe-0 alye-lhe-me-le petye-me.

man-NOM sing-DTR-NPP-ss come-NPP

"The man is coming singing."