4. The syntax of experiencers in the Himalayas

Abstract

Theories of argument structure agree that not all participants are equal in the linguistic representation of a situation. In most situations, some participant is more prominent than the other(s); for instance, the experiencer participant in an experiential situation is typically more prominent than the stimulus (or OthemeO) that brings about the experience or forms its domain. This intuition is shared by current theories regardless of whether they define participants in terms of thematic roles (Giv—n 1984, Bresnan and Kanerva 1989, Bresnan 2001) or in terms of configurational positions in semantic structure (Foley and Van Valin 1984, Jackendoff 1987), and regardless of whether the notion of prominence is explicated as a universal structural hierarchy (Foley and Van Valin 1984, Van Valin and LaPolla 1997, Bresnan and Kanerva 1989, Bresnan 2001) or as the result of more general principles of discourse organization (Giv—n 1984) or event conceptualization (Fried 1998, Croft 1998).

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