ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 examined the two major systems used in languages to distinguish grammatical relations, the nominative/accusative system and the ergative/ absolutive system. It also examined the ways in which the grammatical relations may be represented cross-linguistically: constituent order, case marking and verb agreement. Th is chapter shows that grammatical relations between a verb and its arguments are not static: most languages have ways of changing the valency of a verb via processes of promotion and demotion of NPs. Section 7.1 examines the best-known of these valency-changing processes – the passive construction. Section 7.2 looks at a process oft en found in ergative systems, known as the antipassive. Sections 7.3 and 7.4 introduce another two valency-changing processes, the applicative and the causative constructions.
