This book deals with one aspect of the perennial problem of the relation between language and cognition. Language has rules stating how meanings are expressed by linguistic constructions; or, put differently, grammar describes the (often complex and indirect) mappings from cognitive space into syntactic structures. In formulating these mappings, linguists resort, inter alia, to a construct that goes by various names: case, semantic relation or role, thematic role, theta role. In this book I use the term case, which has the advantage of brevity.

These days, the usefulness of such a construct is being questioned (Dowty, 1988; Ravin, 1990:112). My analysis of various phenomena of English syntax shows that cases can do a lot of explanatory work if they are conceived of in a different way, namely, not as categories in cognitive space, but rather as linguistic constructs that are defined partly in terms of cognitive concepts. There must be a level between the cognitive structure and the linguistic expression; one may call this level semantic, but I will usually avoid this term, which has come to mean several disparate things.

In developing this conception it became clear that not only are the choices of the speaker limited by the resources of language, but the resources of the language spoken may determine the way the message is conceived of by the hearer.