ON BEING WITHOUT A SUBJECT

Abstract

1On being without a subject 1. Subject in a case grammar A crucial characteristic of case grammars (CGs) is the status they accord to gram-matical relations (GRs) like subject and object. * In so far as we conceive of a grammar as assigning to sentences a series of representations, i.e. a derivation, then in a CG the relations subject and object are absent from basic or initial structures and arise only derivatively. In terms of the so-called standard theory (not to mention the extended standard and revised extended standard), an instance of the configura-tion with respect to which subject is defined is present in each structure generated by the rules of the base. And some base structures also contain the defining configura-tion for objecthood. In relational grammar (RG) the relation subject is not only ba-sic but also primitive (rather than defined, say, configurationally). And the universal core of such rules as passive and raising involves reference to this relation, in con-trast with the a-syntactic character of GRs in the standard theory. Let us observe, however, that it is possible to concede a critical role in the grammar to GRs without

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