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This chapter reviews the linguistic literature concerning syntactic atoms in two different types of linguistic theories: mainstream generative grammar and Construction Grammars. In the first approach, grammatical relations are defined as subtypes of the universal Merge operation of Chomsky's Minimalist Program or, alternately, of the Head-Dependent relation developed in Dependency Grammars (which is shown to be identical with the Merger operation). The grammatical relations subject-verb, verb-object, and verb-indirect objects constitute the clausal core. The motivation for positing such formal syntactic relations in linguistics derives from the fact that they are defined solely by their coding properties and grammatical behaviour but dissociated from particular semantic roles. This defines core grammatical relations as purely formal components of the structure of clause, whose semantics is a lexical property of individual verbs. Alternative conceptions of syntactic units under Construction Grammars are then discussed, in particular the claim that grammatical relations are in fact meaningful linguistic signs, constituting abstract ‘argument structure constructions’ that possess uniform or at the least prototypical meaning.

Constructions are characterized in terms of four basic factors: correspondences, profiling, elaboration, and constituency. Correspondences are the basis for semantic and grammatical integration; they specify the conceptual and phonological overlap between component structures, as well as between the component and composite structures. Semantic integration often involves multiple correspondences. Semantic anomaly arises when corresponding elements have inconsistent properties. Usually the composite structure inherits its profile (and thus its grammatical category) from one of the component structures, which is thus the constructional head (or profile determinant). It is also usual for one component structure to elaborate a schematic substructure (an elaboration site) within the other component. A component which makes salient schematic reference to another in this manner is said to be dependent on it. Organization in relationships of autonomy/dependence (A/D-alignment) is a basic feature of language structure. The difference between complements and modifiers is a matter of whether these component structures are autonomous or dependent with respect to the constructional head. Constituency is the hierarchical aspect of symbolic assemblies. Contrary to standard views, constituency is neither fundamental nor essential to grammar, and while it does emerge, it is neither invariant nor exhaustive of grammatical structure. Grammatical relations (like subject and object) are defined on the basis of semantic factors and correspondences, and are thus independent of particular constituency configurations.

Chapter 1, “Introduction”, provides the theoretical framework for the analyses in the subsequent chapters. Different means for representing semantic structure - logical formulas, diagrams, and geometric representations - are compared. The approach taken in this book is to employ a largely geometric representation because aspectual structure in particular requires representation with continuous dimensions. Two major constructs in conceptual semantics are introduced: semantic frames, in which conceptually presupposed semantic structure is included with the denoted concept; and construal, in which alternative conceptualizations of a single event are expressed in different grammatical constructions and lexical choices. Finally, the focus on tense-aspect constructions and argument structure constructions is motivated in terms of the principles of construction grammar.

The syntactic roles (grammatical relations) of subject and object are semantically irregular but their syntactic behavior is claimed to be syntactically unified, thereby justifying the existence of formal syntactic roles independent of meaning. Subject and object are certainly polysemous categories semantically, but syntactically they are no simpler. Ergativity shows that syntactic roles can vary across languages. Ergativity has been discounted in most syntactic theories by selectively ignoring certain constructions such as case marking and agreement (methodological opportunism). But the variation across and even within languages conforms to a universal implicational hierarchy, the Subject Construction Hierarchy: coordination < purpose clauses < relative clauses < agreement < case marking. If a construction patterns ergatively at some point on the hierarchy, then all constructions to the right also pattern ergatively. Language-specific syntactic roles can be mapped onto a conceptual space whose structure represents the semantic participant roles and the Subject Construction Hierarchy.

McGregor proposes that the parts-of-speech of Gooniyandi (non-Pama-Nyungan, Kimberley, Western Australia) can be defined by reference to the grammatical relations they prototypically fulfil and/or the grammatical units they typically occur in; this extends the analysis suggested in McGregor (1990). The Gooniyandi parts-of-speech system shows a considerable amount of flexibility in the sense that the mapping between the categories and grammatical relations is many-to-many. It is possible to place the parts of speech in a partially ordered hierarchy according to their degree of flexibility. Verbs, interjections, and sound effects emerge as the most restricted and most marked parts of speech, and show least flexibility. The remainder can be ordered as follows: nominals, adverbs, adverbials, and particles. It is suggested that the approach taken in this paper is applicable to other languages, though doubts remain concerning the cross-linguistic comparability of the part-of-speech categories.

Beyond a purely formal description of grammar, there arises the question of its distinctive content. What is the content of grammar, as distinct from that of the lexicon? In this chapter we argue that parts of speech distinctions reflect this content already, by encoding referential perspectives on the world or ways of constructing our experience. We develop an account of grammar as purely relational, and as defining a novel semantics in which reference and truth are possible. Moreover, we argue that the recursivity of language can be reconstructed, predicted, and understood on this basis. The chapter also develops an account of the smallest unit of grammaticality, which we identify with the phase of contemporary grammatical theory

Some aspects of linguistic organization traditionally identified as grammatical, such as Case, are said not to feed into the organization of thought or meaning—at least not directly. So why are they there? If they exist in the organization of grammar, they therefore either disconfirm the view that grammar necessarily subserves the organization of a special kind of meaning, or they are wrongly taken not to feed into the organization of meaning. We argue that once morphological Case features are carefully distinguished from the grammatical relations they express, they turn out to be indirectly relevant in the formal ontology of meaning. Yet, in narrow syntax itself, they don’t figure. Standard observations about a connection between Case and referentiality, Case and Tense, and Case and event mereology, follow from the account given.

Grammatical relations between participants are crucial for understanding how each language works. The chapter starts with a snap-shot of core grammatical relations, transitivity, and the marking of participants. The chapter then briefly addresses the types of systems, and touch upon the syntactic categories of ‘subject’ and ‘object’. The chapter discusses nominative-accusative systems, absolutive-ergative systems, and a variety of split ergative systems. Arguments of copula clauses, non-canonically marked arguments and possible relations between case marking, definiteness, and topicality are discussed in a separate section.

The domain examined in Chapter 13 can be broadly described as the domain of relationships between the predicate and noun phrases. The Chapter addresses a narrow but an important issue, viz. the emergence of a binary distinction between the grammatical relations subject and object. Unlike various theoretical approaches, generative and functional alike that take the dichotomy of subject and object to be basic components of clausal structure, the study demonstrates that in some languages this dichotomy is a product of functional changes that start from an initial state with undifferentiated relations, in which there is no distinction between the subject and object. In other languages the distinction between the subject and object is a product of the reduction of a rich system of coding semantic relations between the predicate and noun phrases.

This chapter outlines the methodology used in gathering data for dative external possessors and internal possessors in Old and Early Middle English. Parsed electronic corpora of texts from these periods were searched for all ative external possessors of body and mind possessa playing different grammatical relations, using a list of forms of lemmas referring to these concepts. A second set of searches for internal possessors produced data allowing a comparison of internal possessors and dative external possessors. These searches used the same forms for inalienable possessions but were restricted to verbs likely to represent a situation in which the possessor was highly affected. Various problems that arose in gathering the data, such as the problem syncretism of cases can present in gathering the data, are discussed.