Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

A SYNOPSIS OF ROLE AND REFERENCE GRAMMAR 49

No list or other explicit statement of the thematic relations associated with
a verb has to be specified, since they are derived from the LS, and because
of the principles in (26), nothing more is needed for indicating transitivity
and macrorole choice. Only with exceptional verbs like seem and sit must
the feature [± MR] be listed. Lexical idiosyncracies are specified in the lex­
ical entry. For example, give allows either its theme or locative argument to
be undergoer (the well-known "dative alternation"), whereas steal does
not; hence it is necessary to specify that the ζ argument, the theme, is the
only possible choice for undergoer with that particular verb (U = z). It
should be noted that the prepositions which mark the oblique core argu­
ments of give and steal are not stated in the lexical entries, as they are in all
other theories; this is because they can be predicted by a general rule and
therefore need not be listed (see FVV, Jolly, this volume, for detailed dis­
cussion).
The macroroles of actor and undergoer function as the interface
between thematic and grammatical relations. Just as actor is not equivalent
to agent, it is likewise not equivalent to syntactic subject; nor is undergoer
equivalent to syntactic direct object. This can be seen clearly in (28).
(28) a. Fred [SUBJ, ACTOR] ate the bagel [DOBJ, UNDERGOER].
b. The bagel [SUBJ, UNDERGOER] was eaten by Fred [ACTOR].
 Fred [SUBJ, ACTOR] ate lox [DOBJ].
d. The student [SUBJ, ACTOR] walked into the classroom.
e. The teacher [SUBJ, UNDERGOER] got sick.
In (28a) the actor is subject and the undergoer direct object, while in the
passive in (28b) the undergoer is subject and the actor is a peripheral
oblique. In (28c) lox is not undergoer because eat is an activity verb in this
sentence. The subject in (28d) is an actor, while the subject in (28e) is an
undergoer. The status of grammatical relations in RRG and their interac­
tion with semantic roles (macroroles and thematic relations) is the topic of
the next section.

4. Syntactic relations and case marking

4.1 General considerations

It was noted in section 1.1 that the assumptions regarding grammatical rela­

tions that a theory makes have significant implications for its conception of