Grammatical Relations

Patrick Farrell explains how grammatical relations are characterized in modern theories of grammar. He describes the historical development and conceptual precedents of competing theories and, ranging across a wide variety of languages, considers what their merits and limitations are in different contexts. He examines their conceptions of relations such as subject, object, indirect object, agent, patient, and actor, and their accounts of such syntactic phenomena as ergativity, split intransitivity, voice alternations, and case marking.

Professor Farrell compares mainstream generative-transformational approaches with both formalist and functionalist alternative approaches, revealing points of convergence and divergence. He identifies and discusses problems and issues of continuing concern and considers how these might be resolved. This is an ideal introduction for graduate students and will be a valuable reference for theoretical linguists of all persuasions.