THE EXPRESSION OF SUBJECT AND OBJECT SEMANTIC ROLES IN PREDICATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS
Keywords:
subject; object; semantic role; predicative construction; agent; patient; theme; argument structure; syntax‐semantics interface; typology.Abstract
This paper presents a typological analysis of how subject and object semantic roles are expressed in predicative constructions. First, the notions of semantic roles (such as agent, patient, and theme) and grammatical functions (subject and object) are introduced. Subsequently, examples from different languages illustrate how predicative constructions encode subject and object roles via morphological marking, syntactic position, and semantic alignment. The results identify typological patterns of role‐function alignment and cross‐linguistic variation in the expression of predicative arguments. The discussion considers the implications of these findings for the study of predicate‐argument structure in typology.
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