Grammatical Relations

Grammatical RelationsAuthor(s): Edwin WilliamsSource: Linguistic Inquiry, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 639-673Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4178407 .

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Edwin Williams Grammatical Relations

In this article I will first clarify certain points in the theory of grammatical relations, and then examine in the light of this clarification some of the prominent arguments pertaining to their role in various explanations.

For concreteness, I will compare Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) and Govern- ment-Binding theory (GB) (the latter altered to suit my own views), mainly because these are widely read theories with and without grammatical relations, respectively. I believe, though, that most of the points hold broadly.

The comparison of the two theories is "one-sided" in this sense: both LFG and GB contain 0-roles (agent, patient, goal, etc.) and nominal cases (nominative, accusative, etc.); LFG contains in addition the grammatical relations: SUBJ, OBJ, OBJ2, etc. The question, then, is this: if we have 0-theory (with 0-roles, 0-role assigners, 0-role realization rules) and we have case theory (with cases, case assignment, case realization rules, etc.), is that enough, or do we need beyond these a theory of grammatical relations (with grammatical relations (GRs), assignments of grammatical relations, SUBP-*OBJ,

etc.)? When the question is put this way, it would seem that the burden of proof is on the proponents of LFG to defend the extra component. This is misleading, though, since the case and 0-theories in LFG, or any theory with GRs, could be expected to differ from those elements in theories without GRs; in fact, one might expect the case and 0-theories in a theory with GRs to be simpler and more restrictive, since the burdens of explanation and description would be shared by three subtheories instead of just two. We must therefore compare whole theories, as usual. I will argue that the correct case and 0-theories render the grammatical relations redundant.

Mohanan (1982) sees the issue in a similar way. Acknowledging that case and 0-roles are an inescapable part of any theory, he considers two opposed views of how case and 0-role might be related to each other. In a theory like LFG with grammatical relations, they are related to each other via the grammatical relations; this Mohanan calls "relationally mediated evaluation":

(1) Relationally Mediated Evaluation

"Thematic roles are a property of grammatical relations, and are linked to categorial structure [cases, surface-structure positions] through the intermediacy of these relations." (p. 563)

Linguistic Inquiry, Volume 15, Number 4, Fall 1984 0024-3892/84/040639-35 $02.50/0 ? 1984 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology 639



640 EDWIN WILLIAMS

Without grammatical relations, of course, case and 0-role must be linked directly; this Mohanan calls "direct evaluation":

(2) Direct Evaluation

"Thematic roles are a property of phrase markers, case, or agreement, and are linked to these categorial units directly." (p. 563)

The point is put similarly in Travis and Williams (1983). The evidence in favor of GRs would then consist in showing that the simple, in-

sightful laws governing case, 0-roles, and their relationship and distribution could only be formulated with reference to a set of entities, the grammatical relations, autonomous from, but of course related to, case and 0-roles.

For the issue to have any interest, GR theory must be taken as autonomous from case theory and 0-theory at least in the sense that

(3) a. its primes are not put in one-to-one relation with the primes of these other two theories; and

b. its laws are not simply projections of laws in the other two theories,

if not some still stronger sense. This view seems widely accepted, and most arguments in favor of GRs seek to show that they are autonomous in this sense. Most arguments, though, have compared a theory with grammatical relations to a theory without them, but the theory without them has had the wrong 0-theory. GB theory with the right 0-theory does very well in the comparisons, as we shall see.

In section 1, I will outline what I believe to be the correct 0-theory and case theory for GB, for comparison with LFG. The correct 0-theory implies that all languages have a VP; I will take up this difficult issue in section 2, mainly with an eye to clarifying what is at stake. In section 3, I will show that several arguments for GRs, LFG in particular, do not bear on the critical questions as they have been formulated in the previous two sections.

1. Particular 0-Theories and Case Theories

1.1. A Particular 0-Theory

The 0-theory outlined here is that of Williams (1979; 1980; 1981a; 1982; 1983a) and Travis and Williams (1983). It involves, in addition to the usual assumptions, the notion "external argument" (Williams (1977; 1979; 1981a)).

Suppose that a verb has a set of arguments. We may then take the argument structure of the verb to be an unordered listing of these arguments:

(4) give: (actor, theme, goal)

In a given sentence, each of these will be assigned to some NP, according to the re- quirements of the 0-Criterion and other principles.



GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS 641

In addition, one of the arguments is designated as the "external" argument. This is the argument that is assigned to an NP external to the maximal projection of the verb, an NP that is in the "subject-predicate relation" to the maximal projection of the V (VP) (Williams (1977; 1980)). The external argument of give is the actor argument, since this is the argument that is realized outside the maximal projection of give (the VP it heads). (The external argument is designated by underlining.)

(5) a. S

NP VP

Johni gave Billk the bookj

(Ai, Thj, Gk)

b. give: (actor, theme, goal)

On this view, VP cannot be the head of S, since then VP could not be a predicate, not being a maximal projection. See Williams (1977; 1979; 1980) for reasons why predicates must be maximal projections and why there can be only one external argument.

Some verbs do not have external arguments. These are the subjectless raising verbs, as well as some others (see Williams (1979; 1980; 1981a; 1983a)):

(6) It [seemso [that John is here]s]vpo

(theme)

(Note that the one argument of seems is not underlined.) The VPs that are headed by such verbs can nevertheless be predicates, if raising

has applied:

(7) John1 [seemso [tj to be here]s]vpj

Here, the VP is a predicate by virtue of the NP-trace that it contains. This shows that the notion "subject-predicate relation" is independent of the notion "external argument," since (7) contains the former, but no instance of the latter. See the references already cited, especially Williams (1981 a), for other demonstrations of the independence of the two notions.

The view just outlined really provides two characterizations of the notion "subject," one lexical and one syntactic. The lexical notion is that of the "external argument" of a lexical item. The external argument differs from the other arguments in that it is assigned under predication, whereas the others are assigned under government. The



642 EDWIN WILLIAMS

syntactic notion is "subject-predicate relation," a relation that can hold, as in (7), even where there is no external argument to assign.

1.2. Internal/External Argument vs. Subject/Nonsubject

Clearly, in many cases, the notion "external argument" corresponds to "subject." How- ever, these two things are conceptually and empirically different, and since subsequent discussion rests heavily on a clear idea of what this difference is, we will examine it now.

First, "external argument" is a notion drawn purely from 0-theory, involving both the nature of a verb's argument structure and the manner of 0-role assignment; as I have just mentioned, internal arguments are assigned under government, external arguments are assigned under predication. "Subject," on the other hand, is a term in the theory of grammatical relations, not 0-theory.

Second, although the "subject/nonsubject" distinction corresponds in many cases to the "external/internal" argument distinction, the status of the two distinctions in their respective theories is different: the "subject/nonsubject" distinction has no special status in the theory of grammatical relations apart from other distinctions that can be defined there, such as the "object/nonobject" distinction or the "oBJ2/non-oBJ2" distinction; the "internal/external" argument distinction in 0-theory, on the other hand, is connected by definition to a difference in the manner of 0-role assignment and therefore has a status quite different from such 0-theory distinctions as "agent/nonagent," etc. In fact, the "internal/external" argument distinction does not correspond to any of these, since any 0-role is eligible to be the external argument (though any particular verb will designate a particular 0-role as its external argument).

Therefore, an argument in favor of having grammatical relations in grammar needs to be more than an argument for the subject/nonsubject distinction. It needs to be an argument for this distinction as opposed to the external/internal distinction, or it needs to be an argument for this distinction on a par with, and not different in fundamental character from, the other distinctions in GR theory, such as the oBJ/non-oBJ distinction and the oBJ2/non-oBJ2 distinction. If it fails in both of these, then it is simply an argument for the internal/external argument distinction in 0-theory.

A third conceptual difference is that the suBJ/non-suBJ distinction is not connected to the logical organization of sentences into the subject-predicate relation, a relation that does not exist in LFG. As we shall see, in LFG there is nothing corresponding to a VP in functional structure (f-structure; see section 2.1), and it is held that many languages do not have a VP in even a superficial sense (Mohanan (1982)). The external/internal argument distinction, on the other hand, is connected to the logical organization of the sentence into the subject-predicate relation, for again, the external argument of a verb is assigned via the predication structure of the sentence in which the verb appears. "External argument" entails the existence of VP, whereas "subject" does not, as we shall see (see also Travis and Williams (1983)).




In addition to these conceptual differences between subject and external argument, the referents of these two terms are not exactly the same.

First, there are verbs, such as seems, that have a subject (it) but no external argument:

(8) It [seems [that John is here]ijvp0

(themei)

See Williams (1979; 1980; 1981a) for discussion of these cases. Second, the determiner of an NP may be the subject of the N that heads the NP,

but it may not be its external argument, since the N' is not a maximal projection, and the maximal projection of the N contains the determiner NP:

(9) NP

NP's N'

Joe N PP

destruction of the city

(Joe's destruction of the city)

Third, the external argument of an N (labeled "R") is that argument by virtue of which the N is used predicatively when it appears in predicative position, and by virtue of which it is used referentially when it appears in a referential position:

(10) a. Predicative John is [a fool] a> fool (John)

(R) b. Referential

[A fool] left > 3x(fool(x) & left(x))

(R)

The referential case is especially interesting from our point of view. The external argument is the argument bound by the existential quantifier in (lOb); however, although the external argument is involved, there is no constituent in (lOb) that could count as the "subject" that corresponds to the external argument. Here again, then, the notions diverge empirically (see Williams (1980; 1981a; 1983a), Travis and Williams (1983)).



644 EDWIN WILLIAMS

1.3. A Particular Case Theory

It has often been suggested to me that the theory of "abstract" case in GB is simply a covert way to have grammatical relations without calling them that. As in the case of 0-theory, however, I believe that although there are some general correspondences between case (abstract or not) and grammatical relations as they appear for example in LFG, the two are nevertheless distinct conceptually and empirically.

First, there are subjects (PRO subjects) and objects (NP-trace objects) that have no case at all; this alone would keep the grammatical relations from reducing to case in GB.

Apart from this, though, there is some danger that "abstract" case could be used to encode generalizations that really have nothing to do with case.

There are several senses of "abstract," and it is necessary to separate them. In one sense, a case system is abstract if there are NPs that differ in case, but not in their overt marking of case. In this sense, I would imagine that all case systems are abstract. For example, in Latin, a heavily case-marked language, ablative and dative plural Ns are identical in overt marking in all declensions; yet no one has ever suggested that the ablative/dative distinction is "abstract" or does not exist in the plural in Latin. The reason is that the distinction appears elsewhere in the language.

English is different in degree, but not in kind, from Latin. Nouns in general are not marked for case, but a distinction between nominative and accusative is overtly registered on pronouns. Thus, we may say that this distinction, although abstract for certain sets of forms, is not abstract in the language as a whole.

Suppose, though, that someone suggested that English had case distinctions not overtly registered anywhere (for an example, see Chomsky's (1980) distinction between accusative and oblique case in English; for a discussion along the lines adopted here, see Kayne (1981)). Then case would be abstract in the language as a whole. It is this unrestricted use of invisible distinctions that could lead to vitiating the interesting ten- sions between the two theories we are comparing. To prevent this, let us suppose that there is no abstract case in this sense: abstract case never "refines" real, or overt, case in a language, or for that matter, goes athwart it.

Why should abstractness be tolerated in the first sense, but barred in the second? Since there is apparently no limit on the number of case distinctions a language can have (Latin has 5; Finnish has 17), the learning of these distinctions must proceed by low- level induction on a lot of data, rather than by the "triggering" of a rich abstract structure by little data; such a learning procedure will not arrive at distinctions that are not overtly there, because it is not "looking" for any distinctions in particular. Once a distinction is found, however, it will become a feature of the language as a whole, not simply of the subsystem in which it was encountered-this inductive leap we may attribute to the principle of Universal Grammar that says that the case system applies to Ns in general.

In sum, we have specified a particular 0-theory and a particular case theory. To the 0-theory we have added something that is not a part of usual assumptions: the notion




"external argument." The case theory has been impoverished somewhat: abstract case, in the sense of case that is not overtly marked anywhere in the language, has been banned.

2. Is There a VP?

The status of the VP in grammar is extremely important in determining the status of the grammatical relations. References to SUBJ in LFG, and to subject in GR theories in general, correspond in a wide number of cases (though not all, as we have seen) to references to external argument in the 0-theory we are proposing; but if there is no VP in the relevant sense, then the external-argument-hood of subjects cannot be defined, because the subject can only be the external argument of a maximal projection like a VP. Proponents of LFG deny the existence of VP in two important senses: first, they have denied that there is a VP in f-structure (Bresnan (1982)); second, they have denied that there is a VP of any kind in certain (perhaps all) nonconfigurational languages (Mohanan (1982)). We will examine each of these denials.

2.1. Is There a VP in F-Structure? What features of sentence structure does an f-structure represent? Consider the following f-structure, for the sentence A girl persuaded the baby to go (Kaplan and Bresnan (1982, 227); dotted brackets added):

( 11) SUBJ SPEC A

NUM SG

PRED 'GIRL'

TENSE PAST r~~~~~~~~~~ PRED PERSUADE(( | SUBJ)( ' OBJ)( V VCOMP))' OBJ SPEC THE 1

NUM SG

L PRED 'BABY' _

V VCOMP SUBJ

I ~INF +

~TO SUJ)' PRED 'GO(( SUBJ))

This structure represents control relations, "argument-of' relations, and certain domination relations for the sentence. The domination relations it represents are trivial in this case; the whole f-structure "dominates" each of its five subparts, SUBJ, TENSE, PRED,

OBJ, and VCOMP. The control relation is represented by the line connecting OBJ and VCOMP SUBJ. The argument-of relations are specified by the lexical form under PRED.

Now, consider what properties of sentences are represented in S-structure in GB. Clearly, domination relations are represented; so is linear ordering of constituents. Strictly speaking, control and argument-of relations are not represented in S-structure. Actually, though, they are represented in an "indexed S-structure," which goes by the name "LF," so that for our purposes it is reasonable to regard them as represented in



646 EDWIN WILLIAMS

S-structure. The link of argument to predicate is direct, and not made via GRs, but this we may set aside.

We see, then, that f-structure of LFG and S-structure of GB and related theories are highly similar. Both represent domination relations, control relations, and argument- of relations. The two signal differences are that S-structure has a VP and that S-structure represents linear ordering relations. There is actually a third: S-structure, but not f-structure, is defined in terms of X-bar theory. We will take up this difference in section 3.7.

Given the similarities just cited, the relevant comparison to make is between f-structure and S-structure, not the one so often made between f-structure and phono- logical form (PF):

(12) LFG GB f-structure S-structure

- < (scrambling) >- c-structure PF

Now, what is to be made of the two differences between the theories, that S-structure represents linear order and that it has a VP?

The question of linear order is connected to the larger question of how to treat nonconfigurational languages, languages said to have no fixed word order. Let us refer to the vertical relation between the representations in the two theories in (12) as "scrambling," the traditional name for it. Clearly, theory-independently, languages differ in the degree to which they have scrambling; that is, they differ in the degree to which relations displayed in f-(S-)structure are preserved in c(onstituent)-structure (PF). We might suppose that S-structure represents linear order only to the extent that the relations in S-structure, particularly the domination relations, are preserved in PF. Thus, linear order will be a property of the S-structures only of languages like English, not of languages like Malayalam and Warlpiri. There is still a difference between the two theories, then: in GB, S-structure will have linear ordering in configurational languages, but not in others; in LFG, f-structures, the analogue of S-structures, will never have linear ordering.

The word "scrambling" implies some kind of transformation, or process. Perhaps, though, it is best regarded as the relation between f-(S-)structure and c-structure (PF), whatever that relation turns out to be. It does not change matters of substance to refer to this relation by some other name, such as "realization."

What now of the other difference, that S-structure, but not f-structure, has a VP? It would be a simple matter to add a VP to f-structure, as I have done with the dotted brackets in (11); if this were a universal property of f-structures, then all languages, including the nonconfigurational languages, would have a VP.

Bresnan and Kaplan (1982, 230) give several reasons for having no VP in f-structure:

The f-structure is flattened [i.e. has no VP] to facilitate the statement of certain syntactic cooccurrence restrictions, to simplify the Completeness and Coherence Conditions,. . . and also to permit simple specifications of control relations.




I am not certain what the first reason refers to. The Completeness and Coherence Con- ditions mentioned in the second reason are the LFG analogue of the 0-Criterion; since the latter condition is stated on S-structures with VPs, there would seem to be no reason why the former could not be.

The matter of most substance here is the last item, that control relations are best stated if f-structure (and, presumably, S-structure) is flat, that is, has no VP. The argument to this effect occurs in Bresnan (1982b, 333-343). Optional control (so called in Williams (1980); referred to as "anaphoric control" in Bresnan (1982b)) is governed by a condition on the structural relation between controller and controllee that Bresnan argues to be c-command in f-structure ("f-command," as she terms it). The example she gives is (13) (p. 334):

(13) *Contradicting himselfi will demonstrate [that Mr. Jonesi is a liar]s

The argument that there is no VP in f-structure then consists in showing that this supposed VP would wrongly block control relations between items inside the VP and items outside the VP. The following example (Bresnan's (50), p. 334) shows that VP, in S- or f-structure, does not block optional control:

(14) Contradicting himself will discredit Mr. Jones

All this example really shows is that the VP does not block optional control. The optional control rule in Williams (1980) predicted exactly this behavior, on the grounds that the structural relation between controller and controllee would be governed by Lasnik's (1976) notion of "k-command," to which the VP is transparent. Recent work by Nishigauchi (personal communication) and Pustejovsky (ms.) demonstrates that the relevant notion is probably "in the same thematic domain as" rather than k-command. If this is so, then again the transparency of the VP is predicted, since a thematic domain- roughly, the smallest domain containing all of the arguments of a verb-is S, not VP. In (14), for example, Mr. Jones and the clause to be controlled are in the same thematic domain in that they are both arguments of the same verb; in (13), they are not. Other examples strongly favor this view over that of Williams (1980) or Bresnan (1982b):

(15) Contradicting himself became John's greatest ambition

In this example, John neither f- nor k-commands the participle; it does 0-domain- command it, however.

In the case of obligatory control (so called in Williams (1980); called by Bresnan (1982b) "functional" and "constructional" control) the VP is crucial; obligatory control clauses outside the VP cannot be controlled by items inside the VP:

(16) John [hit Bill]vp thinking that he was guilty (only John can be the controller)

This is as predicted in Williams (1980), since obligatory control is subject to a c-command restriction in S-structure. In LFG, since there is no VP in f-structure, such a restriction could only be enforced in c-structure (LFG's PF). I imagine that this is not an acceptable



648 EDWIN WILLIAMS

consequence, since this restriction would be feasible only in configurational languages- in other languages, control would still need to be in f-structure. Alternatively, the controller could simply be specified to be the SUBJ in f-structure (as in Bresnan (1982b, 325)), but with no explanation of why it was the subject, or what the choice of subject as controller might have to do with the fact that the controlled clause occurs outside the VP in c-structure. The absence of a VP seems to complicate the statement of control relations for these cases.

In sum, then, there seems to be very little evidence against a VP in f-structure (and, naturally, in S-structure) and in fact there seems to be some evidence in favor of a VP in f-structure, or wherever restrictions on control are enforced.

2.2. VPs and Opacity

In Williams (1980) I suggested that the opacity condition is properly stated in terms of predicates, not in terms of subjects. Specifically, I proposed that predicates are opaque (the Predicate Opacity Condition (POC)), in that anaphors cannot be free in them. For example, himself in (17a) is free in its containing VP:

(17) a. *Johni wants Maryj to [like himselfi]vpj b. Johni wants Maryj to [like herselfj]vpj

The reflexive in (17b) is not free, in that it is coindexed with the containing VP, and such coindexing is a kind of binding (the index on a predicative node serves as a lambda abstractor).

Certain benefits to this way of stating the opacity condition were given in Williams (1980). The expletive it seems not to have consistent opacity effects; the VP in its domain may not contain free anaphors, but the extraposed S may:

(18) a. *Johni believes that it will [upset himselfi]vp [for Bill to come]s b. Johni believes that it would [be nice]vp [for himselfi to win]s

It will not do to say that it does, or does not, count as a subject for opacity; either way, the grammaticality of one of the sentences in (18) will be wrongly predicted. The POC makes the distinction, however, since only in (18a) is the anaphor contained free in a predicate. Therefore, the POC is favored over a treatment of opacity in terms of subject.

Opacity in LFG must be accounted for in terms of SUBJECT in f-structure, and not in terms of predicates, since there are no VPs in LFG's f-structure. LFG is thus liable to the same objection as the GB account-namely, no single answer to the question "Does it count as an opacity-inducing suJ?" will get both the facts right in (18). Although c-structure does have a VP, c-structure is not the appropriate level at which to constrain anaphors, as LFG theorists emphasize time and time again; in some languages, such as Warlpiri, the controlling antecedents are not even c-structure constituents. These would seem to me to be compelling reasons to posit an f-structure VP. Unfortunately, this would diminish somewhat the distinctiveness of the LFG theory, since there would then




be an f-structure SUBJ/non-SUBJ distinction, presumably universally (though see the next section).

2.3. Is There a VP in Nonconfigurational Languages?

In a way, we have already answered this question: if there is a VP in f-(S-)structure, and this f-(S-)structure property is universal, then of course nonconfigurational languages have VPs, though perhaps not in c-structure (PF). Nevertheless, it will be worthwhile to consider arguments that bear on this question directly. Mohanan (1982, 524-534) has argued that Malayalam has no VP at any level. If this is so, then it will be impossible to designate "subjects" in Malayalam as "external arguments," so the question is critical.

First, Mohanan points out that ". . . there are no rules or distributional regularities in Malayalam that require a VP node" (p. 524). He obviously does not take the need to refer to the subject as evidence for the existence of VP, but if we do, then this argument carries little weight.

Second, Mohanan contends that positing a VP in Malayalam .. . would unneces- sarily complicate the word order phenomena, obscuring the generalization that it is only the sister constituents directly dominated by S that are order-free" (p. 525). This is true, but again not a weighty argument. If the language has a VP, then it must be specified that the VP is transparent to scrambling. Such statements of transparency under scrambling must be a part of grammar no matter which theory is chosen. For example, in Warlpiri, in the relation of S-structure to PF, every node except tensed S is transparent to scrambling (see Hale (1983)); in LFG, where scrambling holds between f-structure and c-structure, a similar statement of transparency must be made. Even in English, the most fixed-word-order language currently under study, VP is transparent to scrambling:

(19) S-Structure John [said that he was leaving]vp yesterday PF John said yesterday that he was leaving

It should thus be no surprise that the VP in Malayalam is transparent as well. The third argument is difficult to evaluate. It runs like this:

(20) If there is a VP, then there must be a scrambling rule. The scrambling rule must precede quantifier scope assignment and the noncoreference rule.

We will accept Mohanan's arguments for these statements. But this counts as an argument against VP only if these consequences are undesirable. Is the existence of a scrambling rule undesirable? Not if every language (including English; see above) has some sort of scrambling. After all, scrambling is just the relation between f-(S-)structure and c-structure (PF), and it seems not to be the identity mapping in any language; thus, it is simply a matter of determining what the relation is, not trying to eliminate it.



650 EDWIN WILLIAMS

Is it undesirable for the scrambling rule to precede quantifier scope assignment? It is not necessarily undesirable, though of course it is interesting to determine whether it does or not. The point is moot for English; it could be that we can see clearly in Ma- layalam what is true for all languages: scrambling precedes these two rules of LF. Of course, scrambling may not precede some of the other rules deriving LF-0-role assignment, for example, or reflexive binding; these rules require intact constituents, which in the extreme scrambling languages, such as Warlpiri (Hale (1983)), do not exist in c-structure (PF).

It is interesting to note in this context that Japanese, which is similar to Malayalam in being SOV and in having the same scrambling rule, nevertheless gives evidence of a VP node, as Saito (1983) has shown:

(21) ?Johni no sensei ga [karei o syookaisita]vp (Saito's (4a)) John's teacher him introduced 'John's teacher introduced him.'

(22) *Johni no sensei o karei ga [syookaisita]vp (Saito's (4b)) John's teacher he introduced 'John's teacher, he introduced.' 'He introduced John's teacher.'

(22) is derived from an underlying NP ga [NPo V]vp order by scrambling. If there is no VP in Japanese, then (21) and (22) should be equally acceptable, since in both cases the pronoun would c-command its antecedent in both c- and f-(S-)structure. However, if there is a VP, then in (21), but not the scrambled (22), the VP would protect the subject from being c-commanded by the object. This analysis supports two separate points: even SOV nonconfigurational languages have VPs (scrambling is VP-transparent in these languages); and the noncoreference rule applies to c-structure (PF), and not f-(S-)structure, as we concluded from the case of Malayalam. Saito, incidentally, does not draw exactly the latter conclusion.

Mohanan's fourth argument is based on the rule of clefting in Malayalam. The rule attaches an affix (-atd) to the verb of a clause and another affix (-aa) to one of the NPs of the clause. Mohanan shows that the nominal affix cannot be attached to subparts of arguments of the verb to which the verbal affix is attached. From this he draws the following generalization:

(23) Only immediate daughters of S [of the V to which -atd is attached] can be clefted.

The argument against VP is that if there were a VP, then (23) would not allow objects and other VP-internal arguments to be clefted, since they would not be immediate daughters of S, and of course objects can be clefted. However, the same facts are predicted by the following countergeneralization:

(24) Only arguments of V (with -atd attached) can be clefted.




Then, of course, VP-internal arguments are eligible, as well as the VP-external subject, and it does not matter whether there is a VP or not, since (24) is stated in terms of the 0-theoretic term "argument," not in terms of domination.

This concludes our discussion of Mohanan's arguments against a VP in Malayalam. There is another kind of argument to consider, though, an argument of much vaguer character. Mohanan calls a VP in the grammar of Malayalam an "unmotivated artifact" (p. 525); Bresnan (1982b, 319) calls it a "procrustean conclusion." Really, though, if VP is a universal part of f-(S-)structure, then it is no more unmotivated or procrustean than any other general feature of f-(S-)structure, almost none of which is "motivated" in the direct sense that is implied here. It is true that Malayalam f-(S-)structures are more "abstract" than English f-(S-)structures, in that they are more distantly removed from c-structures (PF), but it does not follow from this that some feature or other of its f-(S-)structure is "unmotivated," especially since this greater distance is an inescapable fact about the difference between the two languages, and not an artifact of any particular theory. Consider a similar situation: Warlpiri c-structures (PFs) are more abstract than those of Malayalam or English, not representing even f-(S-)structure constituency; it does not follow from this that f-(S-)structure constituency is "unmotivated."

I believe there is another implicit argument against VP in nonconfigurational languages, an argument related to, but not identical to, the above one: that the existence of the VP in a nonconfigurational language would be hard to learn. But of course, if the VP is a universal part of f-(S-)structures, then there is nothing to learn. Furthermore, if the VP is not a universal part of f-(S-)structures, it is difficult to see how a language learner could infer the existence of VP in English, where it does exist by all accounts. Its transparency to scrambling and almost complete immobility would seem to make it nearly perfectly invisible in the primary linguistic data. Surely the child does not rely on sentences in which VP fronting has applied (Standing on the corner was an old man) to determine that English has a VP. More likely, English has a VP because every language has one.

This point is most strikingly made in the case of VSO languages. If any languages lack overt surface evidence for the existence of a VP, it is surely these. What madness, other than UG itself, could drive children to posit a VP in such a discouraging stimulus environment? And yet they do.

The VSO languages are quite critical to my case. If the subject shows any of the properties that my theory derives from the notion of subject as "subject of a one-place predicate" or "subject as external argument," then these languages must have VPs. VSO-language subjects uncontroversially do have such properties; therefore, there must be VPs in these languages.

Luckily, the analysis of such languages is forced in some detail by the 0-theory we have assumed, both for us as theorists and for the child learning the VSO language: there must be a VP in S-structure, and therefore the rule for S in S-structure must be S -* NP VP; the V-initial structure must be derived in the mapping from S-structure to PF and is perhaps the verb-fronting rule familiar from so many languages. Since domi-



652 EDWIN WILLIAMS

nation relations are clearly not preserved in this mapping, VSO languages are not configurational in the sense of section 2.1, according to the principle given there.

Anderson and Chung (1977) give some extremely persuasive evidence that this is the correct view of VSO languages, though they are reluctant to draw the conclusion I have drawn here. Breton, a clear VSO language, has a topicalization rule that is con- strained to topicalize a single constituent; that constituent appears to the left of the verb. A verb-plus-object sequence can be topicalized, but a verb-plus-subject sequence cannot be (examples from pp. 22, 23):

(25) a. *Deskin ni a ra Brezhoneg to-learn we prt do Breton 'We are learning Breton.'

b. Deskin Brezhoneg a reomp to-learn Breton prt do-lpl 'We are learning Breton.'

There is absolutely no reason for this difference other than the existence of a VP, and there are no reasonable grounds for postulating a VP in a VSO language unless VP is an inescapable feature of the notion "human language," as our theory requires it to be.

3. Cases

In the remainder of this article we will review some of the data that have been put forward as evidence for GRs over and above case and 0-theory. In each instance, I feel that the evidence does not favor GRs; nevertheless, each analysis bears on case and 0-theory in an interesting way, so my goal is not merely refutation.

3.1. Selkirk on Morphology

Selkirk (1982, 28-37) explicitly compares the 0-theory outlined here and in Williams (1979; 1980; 1981a) with the LFG theory of grammatical relations and decides, on the basis of a study of English compounding, in favor of LFG and against the 0-theory with the internal/external distinction.

The argument is based on the following data (from example (2.32), p. 34):

(26) a. *[girl swimming]N b. *[weather changing]N c. *[kid eating]N (where kids eat, and are not eaten)

Selkirk considers two proposals for ruling these out, the first in LFG, the second in terms of the 0-theoretic internal/external distinction:

(27) a. "The SUBJ argument of a lexical item may not be satisfied in compound structure." ((2.31), p. 34)

b. "The external argument of a lexical item may not be satisfied in compound structure." ((2.35), p. 35)




Selkirk then correctly observes that in the 0-theory of Williams (1979; 1981a; 1982), the agent of an N is not the external argument of the N, since it is realized internal to the maximal projection of the N, NP (see the discussion in section 1):

(28) a. [girls' swimming]Np b. [the weather's changing] NP

c. [kids' eating]Np

In each case, the argument is internal. The external argument of the Ns in these cases is the nominal argument R (see section 1.2). Hence, these internal arguments cannot be excluded from compounding by excluding external arguments from compounding; thus, generalization (27b) cannot be right, and instead we must have recourse to (27a), which of course entails the existence of grammatical relations in a nontrivial sense.

I believe that granting the facts, this argument fails to make its point, and furthermore, that the facts are wrong.

(27a) fails to exclude the examples cited, because each of them can be derived by compounding with a nonsubject argument:

(29) a. [swimming by the girls]NP b. [the changing of the weather] NP

c. [eating by kids]Np

In each case, the relevant argument is not realized as a subject argument and thus, under (27a), should be available for compounding. With (29) available as the source for (26), it is futile to exclude (28) as the source. Thus, the argument does not make its point.

In fact, though, my own judgment of the data is that (26a-c) are perfectly grammatical, so it is just as well for LFG that it fails to exclude them.

It seems, then, that there is no evidence for the systematic exclusion of internal arguments from compounding. However, external arguments are excluded from compounding, and with good reason (Williams (1979; 1980; 1981a,b)). The restriction is so fundamental that it is difficult even to display the ungrammatical examples. Suppose an intransitive verb were compounded with its subject. This would result in a verb with no external argument; such a verb could not take a surface structure subject:

(30) It was [boy slept]v

(A) Although there are verbs with no external argument (seems), there are none derived through compounding. The property "has an external argument" is inherited through heads; thus, the satisfaction of the external argument through compounding would result in contradiction: the resulting form would "have an external argument" because its head had this property, but it would at the same time lack an external argument, that argument having been satisfied within the compound (see Williams (1979; 1980; 1981a,b)).

A noun whose external argument has been saturated is even more difficult to display



654 EDWIN WILLIAMS

than a verb. I have proposed in Williams (1983) that there are no nouns without external arguments. A noun without an external argument could head neither a predicative nor a referential NP, since predication and reference crucially involve the external argument; hence, such a noun could never be used.

(31) fool (R)

Predicative: John is a fool fool(J)

Referential: The fool left 3!x(fool(x) & left(x))

3.2. Grimshaw on French Reflexive Clitics

Grimshaw (1982) presents two arguments in favor of the grammatical relations of LFG and raises a number of interesting points about that theory.

She argues that "intransitivity" as it is relevant to several constructions in French can only be understood in terms of the notion "OBJ" VS. "lacking an OBJ.'"

She first shows that French reflexive +verb combinations are syntactically intransitive. I do not agree with this, but I shall accept it here, since it does not affect the validity of her general argument or my objection to it. The reflexivization rule (p. 106), even if correct, does not constitute an argument for GRs; in fact, it is not even stated in terms of GRs:

(32) Reflexivization Predicate (x, . . ., y, . . .)

Predicaterefl (x, . . ., x, ...

This rule operates on a verb's argument structure, a structure distinct from (though related to) its GRs. The elimination of the appropriate GR corresponding to the argument y Grimshaw calls "an automatic consequence of binding." In fact, the rule could not have been stated in terms of GRs, since more than one GR can be reflexivized: both OBJ and OBJ2 can be reflexivized. To repeat, then, since GRs are not crucially involved in this rule, inasmuch as one could have as easily said that elimination of the verb's accusative or dative case-assigning potential was "an automatic consequence of binding," the rule itself, even if correct, does not constitute an argument for GRs.

The argument for GRs is based on the NP-postposing and causative constructions. Both are subject to an "intransitivity" restriction. NP postposing cannot occur if there is an OBJ:

(33) a. Il est arrive trois hommes there arrived three men (from Trois hommes est arrive)

b. *11 mangera cette tarte trois filles there will eat this pie three girls




In the causative construction, the causative agent must be marked with the preposition a' if the embedded verb has an object; if not, it is unmarked.

This alone would not show anything about grammatical relations, for "intransitivity" can still be defined in several ways not involving GRs:

(34) a. not having accusative case-assigning potential; b. not having an internal theme argument; c. not being followed by an NP in surface structure.

These must be eliminated as reasonable definitions if "not having an OBJ" is to be clearly established as the meaning of "intransitivity."

Grimshaw succeeds in eliminating (34c) in the case of the causative construction, but none of (34) in the case of the NP-postposing construction.

(34c) is eliminated in the case of the causative construction by examples like (35) (p. 137, from Kayne (1975, 208)):

(35) a. Cela fera devenir son fils un bon professeur that will make become his/her son a good teacher 'That will make his/her son become a good teacher.'

b. *Cela fera devenir un bon professeur a son fils

(35) shows that the causativization of devenir uses the intransitive strategy (no marking on son fils) instead of the transitive strategy (son fils marked with the preposition a), this despite the fact that devenir is transitive in sense (34c):

(36) Son fils deviendra [un bon professeur]NP will become

The reason that (35) fails to eliminate (34a,b) as possible definitions is that deviendra is intransitive in both of these senses. First, the postverbal NP in (36) does not receive accusative case from the verb. If it has case at all, it has it by agreement with its antecedent, as is common with predicate nominals in the world's languages. So deviendra is intransitive in the sense that it does not assign accusative case, that is, in sense (34a): it is intransitive in case theory.

Second, the postverbal NP in (36) does not by itself receive a 0-role from deviendra; rather, the "proposition" sonfils bon professeur does. Like all other predicative phrases, predicate nominals do not receive 0-roles; they give 0-roles (here, to son fils). Thus, deviendra is intransitive in the sense that it does not assign the internal theme 0-role, that is, in sense (34b): it is intransitive in 0-theory.

Both case-intransitivity and 0-intransitivity are available as alternatives to OBJ intransitivity, so no case for GRs has been made.

In LFG, the NP after deviendra is not an OBJ; rather, it is called an NCOMP. I believe that this nomenclature and this distinction itself undermine the autonomy of GR theory from 0-theory. 0-theory makes the distinction between elements that give 0-roles (0-role assigners) and elements that receive 0-roles (0-roles); the difference between NCOMP,



656 EDWIN WILLIAMS

ACOMP, and VCOMP, on the one hand, and SUBJ, OBJ, OBJ2, on the other, is just this difference. In reality, NCOMP, ACOMP, and VCOMP are not primitive notions, but com- pounds. One part of the compound, COMP, is projected from 0-theory: XCOMPS are the elements that do not receive 0-roles. The other part, N-, A-, V-, iS simply a categorial distinction. The xcoMp/non-xcoMP distinction is simply projected from 0-theory.

Bresnan (1978 and subsequent work) uses the unpassivizability of copular verbs as evidence favoring the GR theory treatment of the passive rule: the rule makes subjects out of objects, and copular verbs do not have OBJS:

(37) *A doctor was become by John John became a doctor

I I SUBJ NCOMP

This argument backfires, however, when one considers that no language has passives of this kind. In LFG, there is no reason why a language could not have a rule NCOMP

SUBJ, giving such passives. Grimshaw (1982, 138) answers as follows: NCOMP is a "predicative function"; SUBJ

is an "argument function"; and a rule of the kind NCOMP ~-* SUBJ iS a "muddling of logical types, which is hard to construe in any sensible fashion." I agree with this, but it is important to note that this law is really a law of 0-theory, having to do with the difference between 0-role assigners and 0-roles, and is simply and trivially projected onto the theory of grammatical relations in Grimshaw's account, thereby undermining the autonomy of GR theory from 0-theory. Certainly, then, no support for the theory of grammatical relations can come out of this; rather, it seems that (37) has nothing to do with GRs at all, but is instead to be accounted for strictly within 0-theory, as in Williams (1979; 198 1a).

3.3. Mohanan on Malayalam

Mohanan (1982) presents an argument for the autonomy of grammatical relations based on the case assignment rules in Malayalam. He reports the facts of case assignment to be these (p. 542):

(38) a. Interpret accusative case as the direct object (OBJ). b. Interpret dative 2 case as the indirect object (OBJ2).

c. Interpret dative 1 case as either the indirect object (OBJ2) or the subject (SUBJ).

d. Interpret nominative case as either the subject (SUBJ) or the direct object (OBJ) if the NP is [- animate]; otherwise, interpret nominative case as the subject (SUBJ).

We may accept these facts without quarrel, except of course we would use the 0-theory term "external argument" instead of "SUBJ" and the term "theme" instead of "OBJ."




Mohanan claims that the statement of the case rules for Malayalam would be made unacceptably complex if the GRs were eliminated. As an example, he notes the following subgeneralization (p. 564):

(39) [ + nominative] NPs cannot be objects if they are [+ animate].

Without the ability to refer to objects, this statement would have to be modified to refer only to 0-roles; it thus would have the form of (40) (p. 565):

(40) [ + nominative] NPs cannot be role j if they are [ + animate].

But, Mohanan continues, this cannot be the form of the correct subgeneralization, since there is no role j that gives the right results.

But the game is given away once we see why it is that there can be no such role j: it is because [ +nominative] subjects can assume a variety of thematic roles, regardless of whether they are animate or not (pp. 563-564, (170a-e)). If the scope of the generalization is restricted to internal arguments, then j = theme suffices for all examples. So the argument carries no weight, except against a theory that does not make the 0-theoretic internal/external distinction; with that distinction, the subgeneralization is as follows:

(41) Internal [ + nominative] cannot be + animate].

As before, then, the argument does not hold against the correct 0-theory. In a similar vein, Mohanan argues that without GRs, reference to subject and object

becomes unacceptably complicated. He shows (p. 565) that the description of the class of objects called OBJS would have to be as follows:

(42) Those NPs which, if animate, are accusative, and if inanimate, nominative.

However, he gives no evidence that it is ever necessary to refer to this class of items, as opposed to "themes" (a 0-theoretic designation) or "accusative NPs" (a case- theoretic designation), except of course in the statement of the animacy case restriction, which we have already seen can be simply stated without reference to grammatical relations. The cumbersomeness of this description is therefore beside the point. In fact, the passive rule in Malayalam shows that reference to OBJS is not correct; only accusative NPs in Malayalam passivize (p. 582), despite the fact that OBJS can be either accusative or dative (see (38) above). Apparently, then, Passive is best stated in a combination of case theory and 0-theory, as suggested in Williams (1979; 1981a), and elsewhere.

Mohanan shows also (p. 565) that the description of SUBJS can be complicated in Malayalam:

(43) Those NPs which, for marked verbs, are dative, and for unmarked ones, nominative.

But again, the correct 0-theory allows the simple designation "external argument" for this class of items, so this argument for SUBJ holds only against a 0-theory without the internal/external distinction.



658 EDWIN WILLIAMS

3.4. Simpson and Bresnan on Warlpiri; Hale on Warlpiri

Simpson and Bresnan (1983) build an argument for GRs on the grammar of control in Warlpiri; their argument is implicit in Hale (1983) as well.

The argument purports to show that control relations in Warlpiri cannot be (simply) stated in the terms provided by 0-theory, case theory, or some combination thereof, but can be (simply) stated in the terms provided by the theory of grammatical relations.

The argument turns on the fact that clauses introduced by the complementizer -karra are controlled by subjects, and those introduced by -kurra are controlled by objects (Simpson and Bresnan's examples (2) and (7)):

(44) Ngarrka ka wirnpirli-mi [karli jarnti-rninja-karra]s man-ABS PRES whistle-NPST boomerang-ABS trim-INF-COMP 'The man is whistling, while trimming a boomerang.'

(45) Kurdu-ngku ka karnta nya-nyi, [ngurlu yurrpa-rninja-kurra]s child-ERG PRES woman-ABS see-NPST seed-ABS grind-INF-COMP 'The child sees the woman grind mulga seed.'

Simpson and Bresnan (hereafter, S&B) establish that the controller of these clauses, in general, need not be present in the PF string, need not be in any particular PF position, and in fact need not be a connected constituent, Warlpiri being a language both with free word order and with scrambling (the relation between PF and S-structure) that allows constituents to be fragmented.

S&B seem to consider these remarks to show that theories that posit S-structures with no GRs are inadequate. But of course, if the S-structures of Warlpiri have connected constituency and empty categories for missing arguments, then these remarks are beside the point, except to show that control relations cannot be said to hold on the scrambled PFs. And since S&B posit f-structures with exactly these properties (connected constituency and empty categories), there is no reason not to suppose that there cannot be such S-structures as well. As discussed in section 2, the interesting points of comparison between these two theories are between f- and S-structures, not between f-structures and PF.

Once this issue is put aside, another remains, because f-structures and S-structures are not identical, similar though they may be. F-structures are stated in part in terms of GRs, whereas S-structures are not; and f-structures have no VP, whereas S-structures always do, as we are assuming. (See also section 3.7 on X-bar theory.)

S&B pursue their defense of GRs based on control clauses by showing that the choice of controller is independent of case; this shows that reference to particular NPs by means of GRs cannot be replaced with reference by means of case. The subject in Warlpiri can be marked with either the ergative or the absolutive case, depending on factors that do not concern us here. The case-marking does not affect the ability of the subject to control the -karra clause-thus, control is independent of case. We may accept this conclusion, but need not accept the further conclusion that GRs are required, since




there is another means by which the controller can be designated: the external argument of the verb. This is a designation that draws solely on 0-theory and thus makes unnec- essary the reference through GRs. We might suppose in general that control relations are always determined in 0-theory, thus rendering GRs redundant in general for control relations.

A similar argument is given for the object-controlled -kurra clause. The "object" in Warlpiri can be marked as either dative or absolutive, and again, case does not determine eligibility of the "object" as controller. Furthermore, nonobject datives (benefactives) cannot be controllers; thus, saying that "dative" NPs could be controllers would fail to prevent benefactives from being controllers.

If we wish to avoid the conclusion that GRs are necessary for stating control relations, and to maintain the idea that control relations are statable entirely within 0- theory, we may offer the following countergeneralization concerning the -kurra clause: the -kurra clause is controlled by an internal argument of the verb. Not only does this predict that control will be independent of the case of the internal argument, it also predicts that benefactives will not be controllers, since they are not arguments of the verb.

To compare the theories further, it would be worthwhile to consider a case in which there were two internal arguments; in that case, a real discrepancy between the two theories might arise. S&B present such a case, in footnote 5:

(46) Yu-ngu-rna-rla kurdu [parraja-rla nguna-nja-kurra] give-PAST- 1 sg-DAT child-ABS coolamon-LOC sleep-INF-COMP yali-ki that rem-DAT 'I gave the child which was sleeping in the coolamon to that person.'

Control by the internal dative NP was "judged ungrammatical after some thought"; furthermore, "a couple of younger speakers of Warlpiri were prepared to accept this sentence" (S&B, footnote 5). The data are quite uncertain. If the dative control is ungrammatical, then the difference between the control relations in the two theories will be OBJ VS. internal theme; if it is grammatical, then the difference will be OBJ or OBJ2

versus internal argument:

(47) LFG 0-Theory

ungrammatical: OBJ internal theme grammatical: OBJ or OBJ2 internal argument

Although it would be silly to conclude anything confidently from this little table, it would seem that 0-theory allows equally simple designations of the control relation, whereas LFG allows a simple designation only if the relevant case is ungrammatical. In any event, this example is certainly no argument for grammatical relations.



660 EDWIN WILLIAMS

3.5. Travis and Koopman on 0-Theory and Case Theory

If the theory of grammar has a subtheory of grammatical relations, and if, as Mohanan (1982) and Travis and Williams (1983) have suggested, the GRs mediate the relation between the 0-roles and the elements of case and configuration, then one might expect to simplify case theory and 0-theory in certain ways that are not possible without GRs. One would hope, for example, that certain "realization" predicates, such as left of and right of, could be confined to GRs; if, for example, it appeared that case or 0-roles were "assigned to the left" in some configurational structure, this would follow from the assignment of GRs to the left, plus the assignment of 0-roles to GRs; in other words, references to left and right could be expunged from both case theory and 0-theory. In fact, some evidence for GRs could be adduced from the fact that case and 0-roles are generally assigned in the same direction; for example, in English accusative case is assigned to the right of the verb, and so is the theme 0-role; without the intermediacy of GRs this would appear to be a "formal" accident, having only a functional explanation.

In fact, though, recent work by Travis (1983) and Koopman (1983) suggests that in some languages, the directions of case and 0-role assignment diverge, thus suggesting that the intermediacy of the GRs in connecting case and 0-roles is impossible, at least if directionality of assignment is not specifiable in the case and 0-role components.

Travis and Koopman suggest that Chinese is to be characterized as a language in which 0-roles are assigned to the left of the verb, but case is assigned to the right. The evidence for this is that all subcategorized complements appear to the left, except the bare direct object; the object must be generated on the left, to get its 0-role, but must be moved to the right by NP movement to get its case:

(48) NP .. . PPt V NP

This is why the object, and only the object, appears on the right. There is another option in this language: the object (or "theme," we would call it) can be generated in a prepositional phrase (preposition ba). In that case, it can appear on the left of the verb, since it no longer is dependent on the verb for its case.

(49) NP. . . ba NP PP V

In order to account for these patterns in this way, it is necessary to split 0- and case-assignment up, since they go in different directions. This means that they cannot be mediated by GRs.

3.6. Andrews on Icelandic

The argument for GRs in Andrews (1982) is largely implicit, consisting in showing that LFG "provides a simple and highly explanatory analysis of [certain data in Modern Icelandic], many of which have resisted insightful treatment in other frameworks" (p. 427). Actually, though, the feature of the analysis that accounts for the data of most interest involves introducing a new element into LFG, the use of compound GRs; hence,




the analysis does not follow from "architectural" properties of the LFG theory. There is still an argument, though: showing that this emendation is a natural extension of LFG, in a way that it could not be for other theories. This is the argument we will examine.

The feature of Icelandic that makes it of more than ordinary interest for the GR theoretician is the "quirky" use of cases. The three types of behavior to be accounted for are:

(50) a. Some verbs have oblique subjects (dative, accusative) and oblique objects (nonaccusative).

b. Oblique case-marking is preserved under passive and raising; but an accusative object becomes nominative.

c. The verb does not agree with oblique subjects; instead, it is marked third person singular.

Andrews proposes to account for (50a) by positing compound grammatical relations; that is, a GR whose value, instead of being an NP, is yet another GR. For example, in (51) (pp. 462, 472) the value of SUBJ iS DAT, another GR, and the value of DAT iS an f-structure projection of NP:

(51) PRED BATNA((SUBJ DAT),(OBJ)) SUBJ DAT PRED BARN'

CASE DAT DEF + J

OBJ PRED VEIK

LDEF + _

Barninu(D) batnathi veikin(N) the-child recovered-from the-disease

(50b) is accounted for directly by the lexical rule of passive and raising:

(52) OBJ F SUBJ

This rule will simply replace occurrences of "OBJ" in the lexical form of the verb with "SUBJ," thereby mapping the compound GR [OBJ DAT] into [SUBJ DAT]. Thus, the dative is preserved under raising.

(SOc) is accounted for by giving SUBJ no value for NUM (number) when it takes the value ACC or DAT. Here, for example, NUM is a value for ACC, not SUBJ:

(53) SUBJ ACC PRED DRENG'

NUM PL

CASE ACC

Since SUBJ itself has no defined number value, the verb takes the "default" third singular marking.

The solutions to (50a) and (SOc) each have an element of worrisome arbitrariness.



662 EDWIN WILLIAMS

It seems a coincidence that the second element of the compound GR is always a GR that maps onto a unique case; in effect, the GR is that case, in a way that SUBJ and OBJ (and in Icelandic, OBJ2) are not-the latter do not correspond to any particular cases. So, for example, there is no compound GR of the form "SUBJ OBJ," since OBJ iS one of the GRs that is not uniquely linked to some case. Conversely, the first element of the compound GRs is never a GR not linked uniquely to some case; so there is no "DAT

SUBJ" GR. This should make one suspicious that the solution is not to be found in the theory of GRs, but rather in the theory of case, and that Andrews's solution has been projected onto the GRs from the theory of case. It is exactly the GRs that are autonomous from case that do not participate in this system. A telling detail is that ACC iS "quirky" on subjects, but not on objects; clearly, this is because accusative case (which is not the GR ACC) is the normal case on "objects."

Internal to the assumed framework, there is one bothersome element of arbitrariness in Andrews's solution to (50c): the fact that in the compound GRs, the value of SUBJ contains only the quirky case, and cannot include other values, as is normal for the GRs. Thus, for example, it seems purely stipulative that (53) cannot be represented as (54),

(54) SUBJ ACC [PRED 'DRENG'

LCASE ACC

NUM PL

in which case the NUM value would be accessible to the agreement rules (because SUBJ

has a NUM value). In what follows I will try to recast Andrews's theory, avoiding GRs entirely; I believe

that under this method these two arbitrary features of his analysis disappear, while his insights are preserved. Before demonstrating this, I would like to discuss a construction in English whose analysis bears on the Icelandic situation; this involves the copular sentences with non-NP subjects:

(55) a. From here to there is a long way b. Under the bed is a nice place to hide c. Relaxed is what Mary wants to be

This construction has all the properties of the Icelandic quirky case-marking system: the subject is not a NOM NP, the quirkiness of the subject is preserved under raising (56a), and the agreement is default third singular (56b):

(56) a. Relaxed seems to be what Mary wants to be b. *Relaxed am what she wants to be

In English, presumably, this means that the SUBJ (and OBJ, though I will not demonstrate that here) relation in English can compound with almost every possible GR: PCASE, for every P, ACOMP, NCOMP, vCOMP, SCOMP. What is striking about this list is that none of these are "autonomous" GRs. That is, in each instance, the GR maps onto a




unique syntactic entity: each PCOMP onto a PP with that P as its head; ACOMP onto AP, etc. SUBJ OBJ and OBJ2 are again conspicuously absent; these are the GRs that do not map onto unique entities in the case and categorial components.

We may attempt to eliminate this arbitrariness by describing this construction in strictly case and categorial terms, bypassing the GRs entirely. We will do this in a way that mimics Andrews's solution, thus saving his insight. Instead of compound grammatical functions, we will compound categorial specifications; so, for example, we will say that the subject of (56a) is both an NP and a PP:

(57) NP [seems to be what Mary wants to be]vp

AP

relaxed

The rule for this is the phrase structure rule (58):

(58) NP -X, for all X

Certainly this is a rule with a highly specialized utility, confined to copular sentences; nevertheless, a less general rule will not do. The main problem with the rule is that it does violence to X-bar theory, in positing NPs not headed by N: in what sense is this an NP? By fiat alone, not by intrinsic character. But even this fault is a virtue in the end.

The properties of the construction are now accounted for in the following way: quirky subjects exist by virtue of (58); they are preserved under passive and raising, because passive and raising move NPs, and these are NPs exteriorly; and finally, the verbal agreement is default third singular because the rule that introduces them is exocentric.

The last point deserves elaboration. The reason exocentricity blocks normal number agreement is that number agreement is determined by the head of an NP; since these NPs have no head, number is not defined. This account is very similar to Andrews's in that it has two layers of categorial structure where his has two layers of GRs. In the account given here, the failure of normal number agreement follows from the exocentricity of the rule: no features are transmitted across an exocentric connection, for the simple reason that feature transmission is not a convention, but rather follows directly from the definition of "head of' (see Williams (198 1b)). In Andrews's account the failure of number agreement can have nothing to do with exocentricity, since exocentricity is a term in the categorial component, not in the theory of GRs. It is for this reason that the categorial account is less arbitrary than the GR account. See section 3.7 for more on this.

The Icelandic cases can be treated similarly. Instead of an exocentric NP - > AP connection, we have the following rule,

(59) NPNOM -* NPDAT



664 EDWIN WILLIAMS

giving the following structure for (51):

(60) S

NPNOM VP

NPDAT V NP

(argument-x)

dative

Despite the fact that items on both sides of the rule are of the same category, the one is not the head of the other; this means we cannot simply identify heads by feature agreement alone (see Williams (1981b) for further discussion of this point). Since the rule is exocentric, agreement will be default third singular.

In sum, then, it seems that two arbitrary features of Andrews's account can be eliminated by recasting it in strictly categorial terms. First, the question does not arise why the GRs relevant for compounding are exactly the ones not autonomous from categorial distinctions; and second, the failure of agreement is a direct consequence of the categorial exocentricity of the rule, deriving from the definition of "head." Since f-structure is not defined in terms of X-bar theory, this solution is not available in LFG.

3.7. Kaplan and Bresnan (1982) and Bresnan (1982b) on the Notation of LFG

In this section I will outline certain problems of the LFG notation and organization. In brief, the problems are these: first, the "fname-fvalue" notation is excessively expressive, and the damage this does is not confined to one component, but shows up in five different kinds of rules; and second, certain of these rule types duplicate in f-structure the work of X-bar theory, some version of which defines LFG c-structures, but not f-structures.

The f-structure notation is quite a general one, based on the notion of "function- argument" or, as Bresnan and Kaplan have it, "fname" and "fvalue." A number of diverse relationships are fit into this format; for example, one fname is the grammatical relation SUBJ; its value in an f-structure is the (sub)f-structure of the subject of the sentence; another is NUM, whose value is SG or PL, depending on whether the NP whose f-structure contains NUM iS singular or plural; yet another is PRED, whose value is the verb of the sentence. What gives the notation its tremendous power is "functional composition": since the fname is like a function, it can be composed with other fnames to




yield complex fnames. For example, (SUBJ NUM) is a complex fname that designates the number of the subject; (VCOMP OBJ NUM) is a complex fname that designates the number of the object of the embedded verb. When we combine the fact that the fname-fvalue relation can accommodate such a wide variety of linguistic relations with the fact of functional composition, and with the fact that this notation is used in five different types of rules, we have an explosion of linguistic possibilities. Most of them, of course, do not exist. The problem can be corrected in two ways. First, substantive constraints can be imposed on the possibilities, reducing their number. Second, an evaluation metric can be imposed, putting the crazy grammars beyond attainability. The "punch" of the LFG theory will have to reside in one or another of these possibilities, since practically nothing of consequence follows from the basic architecture of the theory (f-structure, its composition from c-structure, its notation), largely because of the great versatility of the notation and its divorce from X-bar theory.

3.7.1. Constraints and Control Rules. The specification of various constraints on the insertion of lexical items in f-structures and the specification of both language-particular and universal control rules are given in the fname notation, functional composition being used where necessary. For example, persuaded is marked in the following way (K&B, p. 224):

(61) (tVCOMP TO) =c +

This means that the complement VCOMP for persuade is marked with to. The verb hands is annotated as follows (K&B, p. 208):

(62) hands: ( t SUBJ NUM) = SG

This means that the dominating f-structure's subject's number must be singular. My objection to these is not that the restrictions are not accurate; rather, it is that the language in which these language-particular restrictions are written is far too expressive. For example, it will allow:

(63) a. ( VCOMP OBJ NUM) = PL

b. ( VCOMP OBJ) = 'TABS'

(63a) says that the object of the embedded verb must be plural, clearly a rule of no language. A substantive theory of constraints on lexical insertion might explain the absence of such rules but will at the same time render the fname language and its mechanism of functional composition completely redundant.

The reason that the fname language must be so flexible is that it is doing the job of X-bar theory, covertly.

It is quite plausible that a verb can exert selection (or subcategorization) only on the head of its complements; then the reason that (61) and (62) exist and not (63) is that to is the head of the complement in (61). SG is a feature realized on the head of the SUBJ

in (62); but the object is not the head of the complement in (63). Presumably, c-structure



666 EDWIN WILLIAMS

will be characterized by some X-bar theory with the notion "head." But the fname language does not embody any notion of head; furthermore, it permits reference to any part of a phrase, through functional composition. The f-structure restrictions, not having access to the relevant notion "head," seem doomed to always miss the point. If X-bar theory were imported into f-structure, and the fname language for stating restrictions eliminated, the picture would be somewhat improved-we would then have a version of S-structure.

Given X-bar theory, the question of what is accessible to subcategorization has a natural characterization: only those features of a phrase that are represented on the head of that phrase. The reason for this is the very definition of "head" as given in Williams (1981a), whereby the head must be featurally identical to the phrase itself. Therefore, subcategorization can be restricted to the outermost phrasal brackets of a phrase, and it will still have access to the nature of the head.

Exactly the same problem arises with control rules. Unmarked control relations are characterized by the following lexical rule of control, again written in the fname language with functional composition (Bresnan (1982b, 322)):

(64) ( OBJ2) T (ft XCOMP SUBJ); otherwise, ( OBJ) = ( XCOMP SUBJ); otherwise, ( SUBJ) = (t XCOMP SUBJ).

This rule says that the controller of a complement subject is either the indirect object (OBJ2), the direct object, or the subject, in that hierarchical order. One problem with this rule is that it is a coincidence that the subject is the controlled element in each case. This coincidence is compounded by the fact that the same is true even for the language- particular exceptions to (64); for example, strike, which is transitive, nevertheless has subject control:

(65) strike: ( SUBJ) = ('f XCOMP SUBJ)

(65) is a language-particular control statement. It could just as easily have been (66):

(66) strike: ( T SUBJ PCASE) = ( T XCOMP OBJ)

This says that a prepositional NP in the subject controls the object of the complement; again, a rule in no language. These coincidences are further replicated for all of the instances of "constructional" control (Bresnan, pp. 324-325). Again, a substantive theory of control will make up the deficits just observed, but render useless the fname language.

3.7.2. The Notion "Subject" and F-Structure. The reason the fname language must be so powerful is that it must duplicate the work of X-bar theory without its central notions, "head" and "projection." We have already seen that this lack bars an insightful treatment of subcategorization restrictions; the treatment of "subject" suffers from it similarly. Consider the different kinds of things that must be said about SUBJS in the fname




language:

(67) a. SUBJ iS the controlled element in obligatory control (64). b. SUBJ induces opacity in its c-command domain in f-structure (see section

2.2). C. SUBJ is exterior to VP (at least in languages that have a VP). d. If a language "optionally controls" a single GR, it is SUBJ.

The first two of these we have already discussed. After a brief review of material relevant to the last two, we will take up the general point of this section.

(67c): The c-structure positions of various GRs are specified in language-particular c-structure rules annotated with rules governing the translation of c-structure into f-structure. For example, the rule for S in English is as follows (Bresnan, p. 297):

(68) S NP VP (tSUBJ)= t=d.

This says that the SUBJ iS outside the VP in c-structure; but of course, the SUBJ is not defined to be outside the VP-rather, it is so stipulated in this rule for English. English could just as well have the following rules instead:

(69) a. S> NP VP ( OBJ) = I T = I

b.S-> NP VP NP (tSUBJ) = l t = I ( t OBJ)=

The first says that the object is outside the VP; the second says that both the subject and the object are outside. All of these are permitted; to the extent that they characterize no language at all, (67c) must be stipulated universally.

(67d): In Bresnan's view, the optionally controllable positions are not limited universally to subject; rather, any assortment of GRs can be the controllable elements of a language. The evidence for this proposal is the generalized "pro drop" exhibited by such languages as Malayalam, where any argument can be dropped. I believe that it is a mistake to submit subject control (PRO) and generalized pro drop to a single set of generalizations. The reasons, briefly, are these: First, PRO is subject to opacity, whereas generalized pro drop is not (if it were, only the subject could be bound to an antecedent, and this is not the case in any language I have heard of). Second, all languages have PRO (that is, control of subjects); no language has, say, control of OBJS only, although this would be allowed if the set of controllable elements were specified separately for each language. Finally, the appearance of PRO is governed by tense and related factors; generalized pro drop is never governed by such factors. Granting Bresnan's lumping together of PRO and generalized pro drop, though, it will be necessary to stipulate something like (67d) universally, since no language has control of just OBJS, whereas most languages (and if I am right, all languages) have control of just SUBJ.



668 EDWIN WILLIAMS

The problem with (67) is that the four properties displayed have nothing to do with each other-they are independent stipulations that all happen to concern the GR SUBJ.

In the 0-theory outlined in section 1.1, these properties are interconnected, because subject is defined as the unique argument of a one-place predicate, the logical value of VP. This definition of subject ties it to X-bar theory in a particular way-a subject is always a sister of a maximal X-bar projection interpreted predicatively. This straight- forwardly gives (67c). (67b) follows if predicates are opaque, as explicated in Williams (1980) and section 2-the opacity condition is not really directly associated with the subject anyway, but rather with its predicate. And the fact that it is only the subject that is controlled follows from opacity, so (67a,d) follow as well. This interrelation of the subject properties is possible because the notion "subject" is tied to X-bar theory in the particular way just mentioned.

As a final illustration of this point, consider the fact that there can be only one subject. This follows from 0-theory, if subject is the argument of a one-place predicate that is a maximal projection. It also follows in LFG-there can be only one subject because there can be only one of each of the GRs per f-structure.

These are quite different ways of deriving this fact. In the LFG account there is only one subject for the same reason that there is only one object. In the account defended here, the reason there is only one subject is unique to subject, and there is no commitment to the claim that there is only one object, since "object" has only a nontheoretical status anyway.

In what sense might there be only one object? In our terms, this could mean only one of two things: there is only one theme per clause, or there is only one accusatively marked NP, since our strategy has been to expunge the word "object" in favor of one or the other of these. If the former is meant, that there is only one theme, then it is true that there can be only one "object," but this has little to do with what we ordinarily mean by object, since themes can be expressed in positions other than the object position (subject, for example). If the latter is meant, that there can be only one accusatively marked NP per clause, then it is simply false that there can be only one object-the English double object construction illustrates this. In sum, then, the fact that there is only one subject has nothing to do with the number of objects.

The problem for the LFG account of SUBJ and OBJ is to explain this difference between subject and object; to explain why there can be more than one accusatively marked NP, but there cannot be more than one argument of V external to VP.

3.8. Chomsky on Grammatical Functions (GF-0)

Chomsky (1981) uses GRs (which he calls "grammatical functions" (GFs)) for two purposes. First, he uses the notion "subject" to define the opacity condition (see p. 211, where governing category is defined in terms of SUBJECT). Second, he uses the GFs to define "(function) chains" (pp. 44-45), in terms of which certain 0-theory and case theory laws are stated.




The GRs of LFG are "'primitive" in the sense that they are not defined in terms of the notions of other subtheories (although they are linked to the other subtheories in various ways, of course). Chomsky's GRs, on the other hand, are defined GRs-they are defined in terms of the domination relations of the categorial component, using the familiar "[NP,S]" notation introduced in Aspects. I will try to show in this section that Chomsky's GRs, nonprimitive though they be, are entirely dispensable, given the 0- theory and opacity theory outlined in sections 1.1 and 2.2 of this article.

3.8.1. Opacity. First, if we accept the Predicate Opacity Condition (POC) of Williams (1980) and section 2.2 of this article, whereby predicates are opaque domains, we will not need the notion "subject" to explain opacity effects. So, for example, consider the following sentences:

(70) a. *Maryi wants Billj to [like herselfi]vpj b. Maryi wants Billj to [like himselfj]vp1

(70a) is ungrammatical because the anaphor herself is free in the predicate [like herselfi]vp1, thus violating the POC. Notice that this explanation makes no mention of "subjects"; rather, the predicate can be determined to contain or not contain a free anaphor without reference to anything outside the predicate, in particular, the subject. It would appear that the reflexive in (70b) also violates the POC, since the reflexive is not bound to anything inside the predicate [likes himselfj ]VPj But we may consider the coindexing of the reflexive with the predicate itself to be a means of binding the reflexive (see Williams (1980) for discussion). So the index on the predicate phrase acts like a lambda abstractor. Himself is thus bound to the predicate [like himselfj]vpj and the opacity condition is not violated. In both (70a) and (70b), then, the correct statement of the opacity effects can be achieved without reference to subjects.

The POC is not empirically identical to Chomsky's opacity condition, a point discussed at length in Williams (1980). One important difference is opacity in NPs. Since NPs do not instantiate the subject-predicate relation, the POC predicts that they should not exhibit opacity effects; but since [NP, NP] is the GF "subject" in an NP, Chomsky's opacity conditions predict that they should. Although many facts favor Chomsky's condition over the POC, there are examples like the following (Steve Berman, personal communication) that favor the POC:

(71) Johni wanted [Maryj's permission to kill himselfi ]NP

3.8.2. Chains and GFs. 0-assignment and the 0-Criterion would seem to require the GFs, since both of these notions are stated in terms of chains, and chains are defined in terms of the GFs. However, the 0-theory that incorporates the notions "subject- predicate relation" and "external argument" makes possible alternative versions, versions that make no use of chains or GFs, rendering both of these entirely useless, as far as I can tell.



670 EDWIN WILLIAMS

The first point is that the assignment of 0-roles to simple NPs (or chains of length one; see Chomsky (1981, 46)) is already done without GFs in the theory of section 2.2, where it is stated that all 0-roles are assigned under either (a) predication (the external argument) or (b) government (the internal arguments). Neither of these assignments requires the "[X, Y]" GF notation in order to be stated. The predication relation can be given in terms of c-command, not GFs, and the government relation is given (for example, in Chomsky (1981)) in terms of domination and c-command, not GFs. We could, of course, say that a verb assigns one of its internal 0-roles to the NP that has the [NP, VP] GF; but instead, we will say that a verb assigns one of its internal 0-roles to an NP that it governs.

Thus, simple 0-role assignment does not require GFs. Now, what about chains? It is my belief that chains, whose definition involves GFs in an essential way, are needed in current GB theory only because the nature of NP-trace is not correctly understood.

In Williams (1979) I argued that verbal passives are transformationally derived; all the arguments really showed, however, was that there is a postverbal trace in the S- structure of passive (and raising) sentences. Williams (1983b; 1984) and Bach (1980) show that NP movement cannot be the source for certain cases of NP-trace; for example, if the small clause theory is rejected, as I suggested in Williams (1983b), then the NP- trace in the following restrictive participle has no antecedent subject, since the participle has no subject:

(72) [The manN [believedo ti to have left] VP] NP

There is no problem in "licensing" this trace in S-structure: it is bound by the index on the predicative VP that contains it (see previous section). The problem is, where did the trace come from?

Since it could not have arisen through movement, it had to be spontaneously generated in D-structure. Allowing NP-trace to appear freely in D-structure forfeits whatever it is about its distribution that follows from the theory of movement, namely, its "sub- jacent" relation to its "antecedent." Actually, though, it appears that we can enforce a far stricter condition on NP-trace than Subjacency, namely, the Strict Opacity Con- dition (SOC) of Williams (1982). According to that condition, an NP-trace must be bound in every category in which it occurs. Consider the following case:

(73) a. Johni [wants Maryj to be [seen tj]vp ]vPi b. *Johni [wants Maryj to be [seen ti]vp, ]vp

(73b) is ungrammatical because the trace is not bound in the predicate [seen ti]vpj. In (73a) the trace is bound within that predicate, by the definition of "bound" given in section 3.8.1, where coindexing with a containing predicate is a means of binding. Since the SOC requires that a phrase be bound in the immediately containing phrase, it is far stricter than Subjacency, and thus renders redundant the role of Subjacency in explaining the distribution of NP-trace.




As the previous examples show, there is a sense in which NP-trace is not directly related to an antecedent NP. Rather, the NP-trace acts as a "bound variable" by virtue of which the VP can be understood as a one-place predicate, and that one-place predicate takes a subject, which we may (derivatively) call the "antecedent" of the trace. And of course in some cases, such as (72), there will be no NP antecedent. In fact, we might regard it as the "purpose" of NP-trace to make (one-place) predicates out of VPs that otherwise could not be one-place predicates, VPs whose head verb does not assign an external argument.

Suppose we take this last observation about NP-trace as "definitional":

(74) NP-trace is an empty category bound to an (immediately containing) predicate.

Given this, an NP-trace is related to the containing predicate, not to the subject of that predicate. In a simple structure, its "closest" binder will be the dominating predicate, not the subject:

(75) S

NPi VPi

V ti

As before, we will assume that it is the index on the VP itself that is binding the trace, like a lambda operator. Let us call this index the "predicate operator." If we then assume that the closest binder in this sense is the only relevant binder, we may say that an NP- trace must be bound by a predicate operator. Since "antecedent-of' is not directly defined for NP-traces, chains are not directly defined either; and in what follows, we will see that the notion "chain" is not required for the 0-Criterion.

A VP may become a predicate in one of two ways. First, as just described, the VP may bind a trace it contains, where that trace is assigned a 0-role (as in (75)). Second, the VP may contain a head V that assigns an external 0-role; we may analogize this case to the first by saying that the predicate operator on such a VP "binds" the external 0-role of the verb-or more simply, binds the verb itself:

(76) a. [VO tijvpi (trace binding) b. [Vi . .. vpi (external argument)

We may interpret the index on the V to mean that the external argument of the V is bound to the predicate operator.

Given this view of NP-trace, and especially the idea of "binding by a predicate operator," it will be possible to derive the effects of the 0-Criterion without constructing chains. The principle, which I will call the Bijection Principle for Predicate Binding (BPPB) because of its analogy to the Bijection Principle of Koopman and Sportiche



672 EDWIN WILLIAMS

(1981), is as follows:

(77) Bijection Principle for Predicate Binding (BPPB) A predicate operator must bind one and only one 0-role.

This immediately rules out such cases as (78a), which have the representation in (78b):

(78) a. *John hit t b. *John [hiti tijvpi

In (78b) the predicate operator binds two 0-roles, namely, the external 0-role of the verb hit and the 0-role assigned to the trace. Note that the ungrammaticality is purely internal to the VP and does not involve the subject in an essential way.

(77) also permits raising constructions, like (79):

(79) John [seemso [ti to be [bitten ti]vP,]]VPi

Here there are two VP predicates, one headed by seems, the other by bitten. Each trace is uniquely bound to the smallest predicate containing it. The lowest trace is assigned a 0-role by bitten under government; it is this trace that makes the lower VP a predicate. The higher trace also receives this 0-role, under predication; it is this trace that makes the higher VP a predicate. Thus, each predicate operator binds exactly one 0-role.

Suppose now that in (79) we substituted for seems a verb that assigned an external 0-role:

(80) *John [wantsi [ti to be [bitten ti]vPi]s]vPi

Everything is just as before, except that the predicate operator of the top VP now binds two 0-roles: the external 0-role of wants and the 0-role assigned to the higher trace under predication by the lower VP. Therefore, (80) violates the BPPB.

Thus, we have derived the effects of the 0-Criterion from the BPPB. Because of the very local nature of the binding involved, the satisfaction of the BPPB can be determined by inspecting very local regions of the tree. Each application of it is bounded both upward and downward by predicates. We have used no such nonlocal entity as "chain."

In this reconstruction of the effects of the 0-Criterion as applied to chains, we have used only the notions "binding," "government," "c-command," and "predication." Since none of these is defined in terms of GFs, GFs are not required for the 0-Criterion.

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Bresnan, J. (1982b) "Control and Complementation," in J. Bresnan, ed. (1982a). Chomsky, N. (1980) "On Binding," Linguistic Inquiry 11, 1-46. Chomsky, N. (1981) Lectures on Government and Binding, Foris, Dordrecht. Grimshaw, J. (1982) "On the Lexical Representation of Romance Reflexive Clitics," in J. Bresnan,

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Travis, L. and E. Williams (1983) "Externalization of Arguments in the Malayo-Polynesian Lan- guages," The Linguistic Review 2, 27-47.

Williams, E. (1977) "Discourse and Logical Form," Linguistic Inquiry 8, 101-139. Williams, E. (1979) "Passive," ms., University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Williams, E. (1980) "Predication," Linguistic Inquiry 11, 203-238. Williams, E. (1981a) "Argument Structure and Morphology," The Linguistic Review 1, 81-114. Williams, E. (1981b) "On the Notions 'Lexically Related' and 'Head of a Word'," Linguistic

Inquiry 12, 245-274. Williams, E. (1982) "The NP Cycle," Linguistic Inquiry 13, 277-295. Williams, E. (1983a) "Syntactic vs. Semantic Categories," Linguistics and Philosophy 6, 423-

446. Williams, E. (1983b) "Against Small Clauses," Linguistic Inquiry 14, 287-308. Williams, E. (1984) "There-Insertion," Linguistic Inquiry 15, 131-153.

Department of Linguistics South College University of Massachusetts Amherst, Massachusetts 01003



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