Relational grammar

Relational Grammar starts from the assumption that grammatical relations like subject, direct object, and indirect object are primitive features of grammar. The valency of a predicate (that is, the number of dependents or arguments the predicate has) is listed in the lexicon along with the predicate. In any given clause, each dependent is assigned one (and only one) relation. The predicate is marked P. Term relations are usually referred to simply by their number in the hierarchy rather than full names like "subject" and "direct object". == Strata ==

A central component of relational grammar analysis is the concept of a stratum. A stratum represents the grammatical relationships between a predicate and its various dependents (or arguments). A single analysis may utilize multiple strata, and the properties of any given dependent may be distributed across multiple strata. There are several constraints and hypotheses that underpin this sort of analysis. For instance, the Stratal Uniqueness Law dictates that any given dependent can bear only one term relation on each stratum. When this situation occurs, the initial 1 is instead demoted to a chômeur (from the French for an unemployed person); such dependents are also said to be en chômage. The chômeur relation is a proposal unique to Relational Grammar. In the diagram to the right, this is represented by the abbreviation "Cho". It is hypothesized that arguments en chômage display different grammatical behavior. For instance, the chômeur in the diagram to the right can no longer dictate verbal agreement and appears in a prepositional phrase rather than subject position. == Universals ==

One of the components of RG theory is a set of linguistic universals stated in terms of the numbered roles presented above. Such a universal is the stratal uniqueness law, which states that there can be at most one 1, 2, and 3 per stratum. Pullum (1977) ==Legacy and influence==

Relational Grammar had its heyday in the mid-1970s and 1980s and influenced other theoretical approaches to syntax, including Lexical Functional Grammar and Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar. By the late 1980s, approximately 150 linguists had published work in Relational Grammar, but only around half a dozen were still actively contributing to the framework. ==See also==