Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

442 LINDA SCHWARTZ

sarily a contradiction, if we distinguish between thematic structure and syn­
tactic argument structure. Essentially, these constructions can be conceived
of as containing two thematic roles, but only one role is linked to an argu­
ment position in the syntax of some languages (this notion will be refined
later). However, if this were all there was to be said about a localistic
analysis of these constructions, they should be expected to behave consis­
tently cross-linguistically with respect to the diagnostics of objectivity like
concrete locative constructions and existential constructions such as a man
is in the house and there is a man in the house respectively, which would
have the same thematic structures.
However, in Italian, both concrete locatives and existential construc­
tions have objective syntax, as shown in the examples in (23)-(25).
(23) Molti turisti sono a Roma.
many tourists are in Rome
"Many tourists are in Rome."
(24) Ci sono molti turisti a Roma.
there are many tourists in Rome
"There are many tourists in Rome."
(25) Ce ne sono stati molti alla festa.
there of-them were been many at the party
"There were many of them at the party"
Example (23) shows a locative structure, which selects the auxiliary essere,
like objectives. This can be inverted in an existential construction as in (24),
and shows that the inverted "subject" can occur before the locative comple­
ment, a diagnostic of objectives in Burzio's analysis. However, (25) shows
that these constructions allow ne-insertion, unlike attributives and identifi-
cationals, demonstrating that attributives and identificationals do not con­
sistently pattern cross-linguistically like concrete locatives.

2.2 An alternative thematic analysis

I now consider an alternative way of looking at the thematic relations of

such sentences, in which the single argument of the attributive predicate is

considered to be a location, with the attribute or identifying property being

a theme located at that argument.^7 On this view, then, Sam is tall locates

the attribute of tallness at Sam. In the lexical semantic analysis used in Role