Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

PREPOSITION ASSIGNMENT IN ENGLISH 301

marked, such as (66), will have the same LS.

(66) John loaded the hay on the truck.

In this structure, the parasitic nature of the with-to relationship is clear:
with marks the located entity — the second argument of be-at' in a [BE­
COME be-at' (x,y)] structure. In accomplishment situations with removal
verbs, as illustrated in (67), [BECOME NOT be-at'], specified in the LS of
the verb, predicts the oblique marking of non-U theme by a preposition
other than with — in this case, of.

(67) a. John drained the pool of water.

b. [do' (John)] CAUSE [BECOME NOT be-at' (pool, water)]

The proposed analysis of with demonstrates that its prepositional func­

tions are not as inconsistent as originally supposed. A traditional semantic

role analysis does specify a hodge-podge of roles which would seem to merit

a "garbage can" label. However, if we utilize the tools provided by Dowty

and FVV — the decomposed semantic structures of verbs, macrorole

clausal functions and the verbal classification system — the multiple roles

marked by with are clarified. True, we do not have the clearly defined

semantic components identified, for example, in the analysis of to. With is

the primary non-locative preposition in English, and given its function it is

to be expected that there is no consistent LS representation for it as with

locative prepositions. Rather, we have identified a general principle based

on the RRG linking algorithm (see "Synopsis", section 5.2.1): arguments

which are potential macroroles but are denied macrorole status are assigned

with. In regard to non-U themes, we have identified, not a component, but

a specified environment: with/ BECOME be-at' (—, y). Both do' (x) and

the specified environment are present in the non-predicative functions of

with in accomplishment structures such as (58), thus satisfying our theoreti­

cal condition on specification of semantic "components" for this preposi­

tion. In order to specify all functions of with, we must include semantic

structure information and macrorole specifications. This fact underlines the

significance of macroroles, the volitional DO operator and the verbal clas­

sification system for an analysis of prepositional roles.

2.7 Analysis of semantic structure: for

An analysis of the semantic structure of for is necessarily more complicated

than that of to, from or with, because this preposition specifies two distinct