A SYNOPSIS OF ROLE AND REFERENCE GRAMMAR 21reflects its status as one of the NP operators. Defìniteness is the NP-level
counterpart to the IF clausal operator, and it is the outermost operator over
the NP. It is represented in a separate operator projection. Each of the NPs
in Figure 10 would be given a double projection like this in a complete rep
resentation. Other NP operators include quantifiers, negation, partitive,
demonstratives, and adjectives.^12
One of the major parallels between NPs and Ss posited by Jackendoff
and Chomsky is that both have structurally defined subject positions, and
this particular similarity is specifically denied in the RRG account. There
are two main reasons for this. First, Comrie & Thompson (1985) show that
virtually no other languages allow double genitives analogous to the English
ones, e.g. the company's construction of the bridge, and therefore it is
highly inappropriate to base a universal theory of NP structure on the facts