Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

OF NOMINATIVES AND DATIVES 481

tive sequitur, no semantic connexion, up through a whole range of inhe­
rently logical dependencies of some "lower" S 2 on either S 1 taken as a
whole or some constituent of S 1 For example, a restrictive relative clause
is, as in the standard analysis, some S 2 which is logically dependent on some
NP structure — i.e., that which can be so expressed or coded — in some S 1
What is not entirely clear is whether or not this hierarchy is a primitive; i.e.,
if the categories of linkage form a single, unilinear dimension, or if there
are several dimensions of connexion, each expressible as "features" of syn­
tactic complexes (multiple S structures) and their parts, which, just like the
inherent lexical content hierarchy, generate a space of possible categories
of connexion. Thus, the feature of temporal presupposition of the factuality
of S 2 for the propositionality of S 1 would be common to "S 2 before S1"
structures and in general to restrictive relative clauses where S 2 is embed­
ded as a modifier of some NP in S 1 For possessive constructions of so-cal­
led "proleptic" nature — in full predicational form some relativizable S 2 of
the type NPa possess NPb — which in many languages can be used for future
possession of a desired or yet-to-be acquired NPb, this might not necessarily
be the case even though the degree of syntactic connexion is greater than
for relative clauses along other dimensions. In any event, a reasonable
understanding of the concept of degree of linkage is necessary to under­
stand that case-marking schemata are sensitive to such effects of closeness
of linkage, so that the actual surface case-marking schema used in any
clause Sj depends on its degree of linkage to some logically-adjacent linked
clause Sk, in most situations Sk being Sj+1 or Sj-1.

Logical Relations of Clauses:

probability

of

antipassivization

suspension of agent hierarchy

probability

of

normal

forms

probability

of

nominalization

degree of

formal

distinctness

from

unlinked

clause

markedness

of

connexion

Ergative

Languages

possessive

habitual actor

habitual agent

relative clause (making definite reference)

purposive complement

desire complement

indirect discourse complement

temporal adverbial clause

if—then

disjunction

conjunction

clause sequence (sequitur)

clause sequence (non-sequitur)

Figure 6