Chapter 93Argument Realization and Person Indexing

93.1 Arguments, indexes, and noun phrases

A predicate's argument structure, its person marking, and the noun phrases pronounced in a clause need to be distinguished. A three-place verb can occur with fewer than three lexical noun phrases, and its person-marking system does not provide an independent index for every participant Nakagawa (2024: 127–128); Satō (2025: 368–370). These are related properties of argument realization, with different consequences for analysis.

Verbal person forms identify S, A and O according to the paradigm and construction. Third-person forms are commonly analyzed as zero, while portmanteau forms can express an interaction between two persons Bugaeva (2022: §4.1). The paradigms and disagreements about their morphological status appear in Chapter 62 (Person Marking and Argument Roles).

93.2 Contextually omitted noun phrases

Nakagawa compares three forms of a clause with kore “give.” The full form expresses both the theme and the recipient; either can be omitted when context supplies its interpretation Nakagawa (2024: 127).

Both expressed objects are bare noun phrases. Their roles follow the verb and the context; there is no added nominal case ending distinguishing “to the children” from “sweets” in these examples Nakagawa (2024: 127). Omission differs from incorporation, which combines nominal material with the stem and can change its argument frame.

93.3 An argument without a separate person index

Satō makes the distinction between argument count and indexing explicit with a causative of “draw water.” The portmanteau eci= expresses first-person actor acting on a second-person causee; the water is an additional, unindexed theme Satō (2025: 368–369).

In his Role and Reference Grammar analysis, the theme belongs to the clause's core even though it has no person index. It may also be omitted anaphorically. His next example introduces a sweet, then gives a clause in which that sweet remains understood as the thing to be given Satō (2025: 369–370).

This is an argument licensed by the predicate and recovered through reference, without its own person form. Theoretical treatments of indexed and unindexed noun phrases are compared in Chapter 94 (Noun Phrases and Pronominal-Argument Analyses).

93.4 Location and other role information

Locative noun classes can help identify which participant has a spatial role. Nakagawa compares cise or ta ahun “enter the house” with cise or osma “jump into the house.” The first has a postpositional phrase; the second has a locative object selected by the transitive verb Nakagawa (2024: 128). Location in the event does not by itself determine whether the expression is a core object or an adjunct.

His Handbook example with oma-re “put into” contains two objects, cooked food and a basket's location, while leaving the actor unexpressed. The locative noun or marks the basket phrase as the location Nakagawa (2022: §6.1, example 74). Person marking, nominal class, lexical selection and discourse all contribute to identifying the participants. See Chapter 52 (Relational Nouns, Spatial Forms, and Quasi-Incorporation) for the locative forms.