148 ROBERT D. VAN VALIN, JR.7.3.2 Linking in questions in complex sentences
In the linking procedures in (115) and (121), the steps referring to WH-
questions appear quite simple, and in fact the major complexities that com
plex sentences introduce are handled by the constraint in (130); it presup
poses the principle in (111) and a theory of lexical semantics and informa
tion structure. For the remainder of this section it will be assumed that the
determination of the PFD in a complex sentence is unproblematic. The
incorporation of the constraint in (130) into the linking procedures can be
accomplished as follows. In (115), step 6 states "If there is a focus NP which
is [+WH], then assign it to the PCS", and because focus can only be
assigned within the PFD, it follows that the clause in which the argument
would occur in must be within it. Hence the only modification necessary for
(115) is the statement in step 3 that focus can only be assigned to an ele
ment in a clause within the PFD of the sentence. This follows from the
theory of focus structure types presented in section 2.3 and is stated here
only for clarity. Step 5b in (121) would be modified to read "If there is an
element in the PCS, assign it the remaining unlinked argument position in
the LS of a predicate whose clause is within the PFD of the sentence." Fail
ure to meet these conditions would block the linking and lead to a CC viola
tion. The final versions of the linking algorithms are given in (137) and
(138).
(137) Linking from Logical Structure to Syntactic Structure (Final ver
sion)
- Determine the semantic roles of the arguments, based on
their position in the decomposed semantic structure. - Determine actor and undergoer assignments, following the
Α-U Hierarchy in (25). - Assign pragmatic functions (topic, focus) to the elements in
the clause; focus can only be assigned to an element in a
clause within the PFD of the sentence. - Assign actor and undergoer to specific morphosyntactic func
tions.
a. This is language-specific (see 39).
b. In syntactically accusative languages, the accessibility to
pivot is A > U. - Assign the remaining core arguments their appropriate case
markers/prepositions.