ARGUMENT LINKING IN DERIVED NOMINALS 425- It is important to make this assumption explicit since nominal argument structure
is not found solely with vNs. For example, there are nominals like aggression
which have argument structure, but which have no verbal counterpart. - Since RRG does not define transitivity in the traditional manner, but defines it in
terms of the number of macroroles a verb takes, quotation marks will hereafter be
used with "intransitive" to indicate the purely syntactic sense in which the term is
being employed. - The priviledged syntactic position in the English clause is a pragmatic pivot, which
— in English — is instantiated in the "subject." In RRG, it is the concept of pivot,
not subject, which is theoretically relevant. See "Synopsis" for review of the
theory's treatment of GRs; for a detailed discussion, see FVV (1984: Chapter
Four). See FVV (1984: 170-171 and 176-179) for a discussion of ergative vs.
accusative patterning. - For the sake of clarity, the traditional term "subject" will be used throughout, but
see preceding footnote. - See Lambrecht (1987) for examples of both the unmarked "predicate focus" and
the marked "sentence focus" structures of clauses. See also "Synopsis", sect. 2. - Notice that in Fred, I haven't seen him, him — not Fred — is the verb's theme
argument, while in Fred I haven't seen, the argument Fredth occurs in the clause-
internal Pre-Core Slot (PCS), which functions roughly as focus. See Van Valin
(1987: 4-5) for a discussion of clausal focus vs. sentential topic in Japanese and
English. See also "Synopsis", sect. 2. - See the appendix "vN Tables" in Nunes (1990) for a complete list of the vNs com
posing the data base (schematically organized in terms of the verb classes to which
vN verb sources belong), for the LSs of all the nominals discussed in this study,
and for examples of argument structures in clausal correlates. - See FVV (1984: 81-95) and Jolly (1987: 98-112), this volume, for RRG-framed
discussions of prepositional marking in the clause. - Rappaport treats their presentation of Mary with a cake as ungrammatical (1983:
117). I find the construction perfectly acceptable. In all fairness to Rappaport,
however, it should be noted that whereas the American speakers from whom
grammaticality judgments were solicited for this current study found the construc
tion quite acceptable, an Australian English speaker found it odd. Without a cake,
of course, neither clause nor vNP retains a locative interpretation of Mary — i.e.
in They presented Mary and their presentation of Mary, Mary can only be inter
preted as a theme — not a locative — U. In terms of RRG's Α-U Hierarchy, this
reflects the unmarked ranking of theme > locative for U status. - According to both Riddle (1984) and Deane (1987), the postnominal possessive is
chosen where discourse requires that the possessor NP be foregrounded (or
placed in focus) relative to the possessed NP. Where the reverse situation obtains