Referent systems and relational grammar (Q1610624)

Relational Grammar (RG) is a framework for the analysis of grammatical phenomena like passivization, dative shift or raising, which is based on the notion of a grammatical relation. Referent Systems (RS) were introduced in the context of Dynamic Semantics to set up explicit procedures that admit to identify variables and their relationships to other sentential constituents in natural language. The author shows that there is a close affinity between the two formalisms in the sense that RGs can be seen as a particular type of RS. First, RSs are used to formalize RGs. It is shown that various laws of RG are immediate consequences of this formalization whereas other generalizations have to be explicitly stipulated. Next, stacked RSs are introduced to account for the mechanics of theta roles. The workings of the formalizations are exemplified by a case study: the results of an analysis of the language Kinyarwanda are reproduced in the theory. The final section is devoted to the notion of a chômeur. Deviating from what is assumed in RG, this notion is analyzed as a kind of anonymous referent.