ABSTRACT
Grammatical theories all use in one form or another the concept of canonical position of a phrase. If this notion is used in the syntax, when comparing the two sentences:
John will see Bill.
Bill John will see.
we say that Bill occupies its canonical position in (1a) but not in (1b). Adopting the terminology of the Extended Standard Theory, we can think of the canonical position of a phrase as its D-structure position.