Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

(singke) #1
ATTRIBUTIVES AND IDENTIFICATIONALS 443

and Reference Grammar, this analysis would be expressed schematically as
in (26), with the analysis of Sam is tall given in (27).


(26) be' (x, y)
I I
Loc Th
(27) be' (Sam, tall)

I I


Loc Th
Either of the schemata for the analysis of the thematic relations for
attributive constructions presented above makes them like other [location,
theme] structures at the level of thematic relations and under each they
would be classified as statives. Under the first, they share with concrete
locatives a structure in which the theme is subject. Under the second, they
share with perception predicates and cognitive predicates a structure in
which the location is subject.^8 What I suggest, then, is that attributive and
identificational structures either (i) strongly, are schematized only as loca­
tion-subject structures in at least some languages, or (ii) weakly, cannot be
viewed as prototypical theme-subject structures in any language because
the theme-subject schema is only one of the possible schematizations of this
conceptual relation. It is difficult to know where to look for absolute con­
firming or disconfirming evidence for either of these options. Researchers
exploring a localist analysis often rely on morphological coding which man­
ifests markings which are demonstrably used in the concrete locative coding
patterns of a language, or, when this is absent, on paraphrase relations
which manifest such coding (this approach is explicitly stated, for example,
in Jackendoff (1976)). However, unless all paraphrase options are exhaus­
tively examined and compared to each other and to all of the relevant mor­
phological coding patterns (if such exist), the best that can be concluded is
that a given schematization is plausible in the sense of being compatible
with some paraphrase of the right type and/or some morphological coding
of the right type. What cannot be concluded is that an alternative concep­
tualization is not also plausible.^9 For the languages examined here, French,
Italian and Russian all use the same verb (corresponding to English be) to
encode concrete locative constructions as well as attributive and identifica­
tional constructions.^10 In Dakota, on the other hand, concrete locatives are
expressed with a verb of location/existence while in attributive and identifi­
cational constructions, the attribute or identificand itself functions as the

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