Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

12 ROBERT D. VAN VALIN, JR.

IF is indicated by the position of the tense marker: interrogative IF by core-

initial tense, declarative by core-internal tense, and imperative by no tense.

By separating the constituent from the operator projections, the represen­

tations in Figure 4 show clearly the similarities in operators despite the

manifest differences in the predicate-argument arrangement in the two lan­

guages.

1.5 Sentence vs. clause

The traditional distinction between sentence and clause is important in

RRG. A simple sentence may contain, in addition to a clause with all of its

operators, a further position for extraclausal elements. In section 1.2 a con­

trast between two positions for displaced elements was introduced, that

between LDP and PCS. This is an important distinction, because elements

in the two positions behave very differently. The PCS is a clause-internal

position, and as such the element occupying it is within the scope of the IF

operator over the clause. This can be seen clearly in WH-questions in which

the WH-word appears in the PCS, as in Figure 2. The WH-word is the focus

of the question, and it must be within the scope of the interrogative IF