Rektsioonile

Rektsioonile is a term used in some theoretical linguistic frameworks, particularly within generative grammar, to describe the process by which a verb, adjective, or preposition assigns grammatical case to its argument(s). This assignment of case is a fundamental aspect of sentence structure and meaning. For example, in English, the verb "to give" typically assigns accusative case to its direct object and dative case to its indirect object. While English has largely lost its overt case marking system, the concept of rection is still relevant for understanding underlying grammatical relations. In languages with richer case systems, such as German or Russian, the overt morphological marking of case on nouns and pronouns directly reflects the rection exercised by the governing word.

The specific types of case assigned by a lexical item are determined by its subcategorization frame, which specifies the syntactic and semantic requirements of that item. This frame dictates which arguments are required and what grammatical properties they must possess, including case. Linguists debate the precise nature and universality of rection, with some theories proposing abstract case assignment mechanisms that operate independently of surface grammatical relations. Understanding rection is crucial for explaining phenomena such as argument structure, verb agreement, and the distribution of grammatical elements within a sentence.