Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

(^278) JULIA A. JOLLY
(1) John hit the counter with the cane.λ
(2) John loaded the truck with hay.
(3) The dean presented John with his diploma.
Foley & Van Valin also discuss the marking of themes which Φ U by of in
sentences with removal verbs, as in (4).
(4) John drained the tub of water.
They conclude that when the movement of the theme is from an unspecified
to a specified location, as in (l)-(3), the theme is marked by with. When the
movement is from a specified to an unspecified location, as in (4), the
theme is marked by of. Presumably, with a verb such as load or spray, we
have a [[BECOME NOT be-at']&[BECOME be-at']] structure in LS;
whereas with a removal verb such as drain, we have a reversed structure in
LS: [[be-at']&[BECOME NOT be-at']]. Ideally, we would like to have an
abstract LS for with and of that would predict which preposition would
occur in which structure. Absent of such an ideal structure, we can specify
prepositional marking by positing lexical rules which stipulate the occur­
rence of with or of with a specified LS, as follows: with occurs with a verb
which has a [BECOME be-at'] structure in LS; and of occurs with a verb
which has a [BECOME NOT be-at'] structure in LS (See the analysis of
with in section 2.6)
The other functional role of with, marking an effector or agent which
Φ A, is illustrated by sentences (1) and (5) (FVV examples, 84).
(5) John went to the party with Mary.
The semantic relationship between John and Mary in (5) has traditionally
been termed "comitative". With marks an argument which is considered a
co-performer of the action. Syntactically, the relationship between John
and Mary has often been described as 'conjunct-splitting' (FVV,84). Essen­
tially, we have two conjoined agents, John and Mary, where the agent role
of Mary is signaled by the oblique marker, with. The LS of (5) is specified
by FVV (85) as in (6).
(6) [DO (John/Mary, [go' (John/Mary)])] CAUSE [BECOME be­
at' (party, J/M)]]
John and Mary are thus identified as co-agents.^2 However, the authors state
that in (5) only John is the A, a fact which is not indicated in the specified
LS. Further, in the RRG analysis, a sentence such as (7), where the con­
joined A roles are not split, would have an identical LS.