Reviewed by Wolfgang Schulze, University of Munich

The last two decades have witnessed the appearance of a large number of books devoted to the typology of clause structures. Here, Javier Rivas develops a comprehensive picture of clause structures from a functional and cognitive perspective. R attempts to revise many basic descriptors and categorical commonalities, such as subject- and objecthood and relational (i.e. syntactic) primitives. Taking a typological approach, R investigates data from nearly 300 languages. All examples are fully glossed, although full morphological analyses of the language data are not always provided.

The volume includes six sections, preceded by a brief foreword and followed by references and a language index. In Section 1 (15–36), R discusses the functional domains of clause constructions, including their motivation by semantic and pragmatic features. Furthermore, he questions whether the categories subject and object are universally valid parameters.

In Section 2 (37–154), R turns to the typology of clause structure with a summary of nominative-accusative, ergative-absolutive, and active-inactive patterns. Additionally, R investigates minor clause structure types such as neutral, tripartite, and focus-based constructions.

In Section 3 (155–328), R investigates the well-known problem of transitivity and the nominal hierarchy. Here, R reports on the cognitive and semantic features that are thought to represent the central motivation for transitivity. Following an interesting discussion of the debate over arbitrariness and iconicity, R presents the major aspects of the split-typology of relational primitives.

Section 4 (329–70) deals with a nondiscrete approach to clause structure, which proposes a fuzzy theory of relational typology. R focuses on features of ergativity in accusative-based paradigms as well as on activity grading, which approximates the usual discussion on the common theories of relational splits.

In Section 5 (371–436), R investigates whether assuming the existence of universal core relations is justified. After discussing in detail the question of subjecthood (and coming to the conclusion that this category is valid only in accusative systems) and the status of relational primitives, R adopts the notion of protagonist and antagonist to describe the universal properties of clausal structuring.

The final section (437–45) is a summary of the observations and proposals argued throughout the book. In sum, R’s study is an interesting cross-linguistic contribution to the discussion of clausal organization. Although it does not provide full coverage of clause constructions, this book could be used as a textbook: the author’s specific perspective will help to promote the discussion of grammatical relations.