Blake B. Relational grammar. Linguistic theory guides

Routledge, 1990. — 158 p.Relational Grammar was developed by David Perlmutter and Paul Postal in the early 1970s and first presented to a large audience at the 1974 Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute in Amherst. The first publications began appearing around this time and by the end of 1987 about 150 linguists had written in this framework, contributing between them over 300 papers, over 40 theses (honours, MA, and PhD), and more than a dozen anthologies and published monographs. However, until now there has been no general book-length treatment of the theory, though a useful booklet by Donald Frantz outlining typical Relational Grammar analyses was put out by the Indiana University Linguistics Club (Frantz 1981).
The present text describes the basic ideas, evaluates them, and compares them with other approaches in other theories. The treatment is straightforward and should be comprehensible to anyone conversant with traditional grammatical terminology. All the unfamiliar terms and conventions of Relational Grammar are explained and illustrated.
The book is aimed primarily at readers interested in modern theories of grammar, but it should also be of relevance to those who are interested in surface-based, function-oriented, comparative linguistics. It contains a wealth of data on morphology and syntax and it also includes comparisons of Relational Grammar analyses with those of ‘non-aligned’ linguists who are working with much the same data.Outline
Basic notions
Some technicalities
Relational laws
Motivation
Linearization
Arc Pair Grammar
Some clause-internal revaluationsEstablishing initial relations
Hierarchy
The Unaccusative Hypothesis
Antipassive and 2–3 retreat
Inversion
Problems with objects
Kinyarwanda
Tertiary passives and the Nuclear Novice Law
Primary and secondary objects
Revaluations and valency
Some semantic considerations
Reflexives and impersonals
Reflexives
True reflexives
False reflexives
Reflexive passives
Summary
Dummies and impersonal constructions
Plain impersonal passives
Impersonal passive
Impersonal passive and unaccusatives
Impersonal passive and transitives
Reflexive impersonal passives
Multinode networks
Cross-clausal multiattachment
Extraposition
Ascension
Clausal ascension
Possessor ascension
Clause Union
Clause Union
Causative Clause Union
Uniclausal analysis
Modal Union
Causative Union
Nominal Union
Review
Relations and strataFinal relations
Initial relations
Terms unspecified for level
Acting terms
Working 1
Review
Describing different nuclear typesActive languages
Ergative languages
Philippines-type languages
Overview
RG and rival theories
RG, typology, and universals