ABSTRACT
First, syntactic elements often appear in pairs. The following are fi ve pairs of elements commonly found in clauses:
1 subject-predicate 2 predicator-object 3 attribute-head 4 adverbial-head 5 complement-head
In the literature, subject, predicate, object, attribute, adverbial, and complement are listed as parallel syntactic elements. Both elements within the aforementioned pairs are mutually defi ning; that is, each is defi ned with respect to the other and vice versa. Each occupies one of the two positions that are relational to the other. The one presupposes the existence of the other. For example, subject and predicate are relational to one another; subject is defi ned in terms of predicate, and vice versa. The existence of subject presupposes that of predicate and vice versa. The same is true with the other pairs.
