DEPENDENCIES BETWEEN GRAMMATICAL SYSTEMS

In some languages there art dependencies between grammatical systems, e.g. there may be fewer tense choices in negative than in positive pol arity. Wr examine the direction of dependencies between eight types of grammatical systems, and establish a dependency hierarchy. Polarity i s at the top of the hierarchy-the choices available in another system may depend on polarity, but the possibility of positive/negative speci fication never depends on any oi the other systems considered here. Ne xt come systems associated with the predicate (or perhaps with the cla use as a whole): tense, aspect, and evidentiality. Next come systems a ssociated with predicate arguments-person, reference classification (c overing gender/noun class, classifiers, and human/nonhuman or animate/ inanimate); then number. And finally case, which marks the function of a predicate argument. The rationale for this hierarchy is considered. An appendix adds systems of definiteness to the discussion.