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