Relational grammar


In linguistics, relational grammar is a syntactic theory which argues that primitive grammatical relations provide the ideal means to state syntactic rules in universal terms. Relational grammar began as an alternative to transformational grammar.

Term relations

In relational grammar, constituents that serve as the arguments to predicates are numbered. This numbering system corresponds loosely to the notions of subject, direct object and indirect object. The numbering scheme is subject →, direct object → and indirect object →. A schematic representation of a clause in this formalism might look like:

Other features

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.