The Cambridge Handbook of Role and Reference Grammar (Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics)

Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) is a theory of language in which linguistic structures are accounted for in terms of the interplay of discourse, semantics and syntax. With contributions from a team of leading scholars, this Handbook provides a field-defining overview of RRG. Assuming no prior knowledge, it introduces the framework step-by-step, and includes a pedagogical guide for instructors. It features in-depth discussions of syntax, morphology, and lexical semantics, including treatments of lexical and grammatical categories, the syntax of simple clauses and complex sentences, and how the linking of syntax with semantics and discourse works in each of these domains. It illustrates RRG's contribution to the study of language acquisition, language change and processing, computational linguistics, and neurolinguistics, and also contains five grammatical sketches which show how RRG analyses work in practice. Comprehensive yet accessible, it is essential reading for anyone who is interested in how grammar interfaces with meaning.

Delia Bentley is Professor of Romance Linguistics at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Split intransitivity in Italian (Mouton, 2006) and a co-author of Existentials and Locatives in Romance Dialects of Italy (OUP, 2015).

Ricardo Mairal-Usón is Full Professor of Linguistics at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia since 2002. He has co-authored or co-edited a number of books including Nuevas perspectivas en Gramática Funcional (Ariel, 1999), which was awarded the Nation Research Price AEDEAN 1999, and Linguistic Universals (with Gil, CUP, 2006).

Wataru Nakamura is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at Tohoku University. He is the editor of New Perspectives in Role and Reference Grammar (CSP, 2011) and the co-editor of Objectivization and Subjectivization: Typology of Voice Systems (National Museum of Ethnology, 2012).

Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. is Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Linguistics at the University at Buffalo (SUNY) and the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. He is the co-author of Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar (CUP, 1984), the co-author of Syntax (CUP, 1997), and the author of Exploring the Syntax-Semantics Interface (CUP, 2005).