A nominal component N of a construction bears some semantic or syntactic relation to another syntactic component of the construction. Presently, only dependency relations are of relevance, i.e. relations in which N depends on that other component. There are different structural means to manipulate and code such a relation.

Adverbal relations

Here, the relation of the indirect object to its verb serves as an example:

1. The relation may be viewed as a function of N. In the example, this is the indirect object function. This may then be coded by case on N, which in the example would be the dative, as illustrated by dir in .

   .	ich	schenke	dir	das	Buch
   German	I.NOM	present:1.SG	thou:DAT	DEF:ACC.SG.N	book.N
   	I give you the book (as a present)

2. The relation may be viewed as an actant position associated with its dependency controller (or head), in this case, the indirect object place comprised by the valency of the verb. There may be a pronominal index position in the verb form where N is cross-referenced by some of its pronominal properties, typically person and number. In the example, the verb would have a pronominal index position for the indirect object which is occupied by a pronominal form indicating person and number of N, as illustrated by -kizu in .

   .		ni-k	zu-ri	liburu-a	da-kar-kizu-t
   Basque		I-ERG	thou-DAT	book(ABS)-DEF	ABS.3.SG-bring-IO.2.SG-ERG.1.SG
   		I bring you the book

3. The relation may be manipulated by a verbal voice or by a valency-changing derivation. In the example, an indirectus-promoting voice might promote N from indirect object to subject function (), or an applicative derivation might promote N from indirect to direct object function (), or indirectus demotion might demote N from indirect object to a lower syntactic function (¹).

   .	du	krieg-st	das	Buch	ge>schenk<t
   German	thou:NOM	get-2.SG	DEF:ACC.SG.N	book.N	present<PTCP.PRF>
   	you get the book as a present

   .	ich	be-schenke	dich	(mit	dem	Buch)
   German	I.NOM	APPL-present:1.SG	thou:ACC	with	DEF:DAT.SG.N	book.N
   	I present you (with the book)

   .	ich	ver-schenke	das	Buch	(an	dich)
   German	I.NOM	VAL.OP1-present:1.SG	DEF:DAT.SG.N	book.N	at	thou:ACC
   	I give the book away (to you).

As the same syntactic or semantic relation may be involved in the three kinds of structural devices, these are often erroneously named by the same terms,² and the formatives used then receive the same gloss. The following table helps maintain the distinctions:

In interlinear morphological glosses,

1. categories of column 1 are shown in cross-reference index positions on valency controllers, as in
2. categories of column 2 are shown on nominal units, as in
3. categories of column 3 and 4 are shown on verb stems, as in - .

Possessive relations

A recurrent mistake in linguistic description and morphological glossing is the following: wherever a nominal expression bears some possessive relation to something, the gloss POSS is used for the grammatical formative involved. However, there are at least five different functions fulfilled by morphological formatives in possessive constructions. Only for one of them, the gloss POSS is appropriate. S. possessive constructions.

The different possessive relations and the glosses to be used are:

1. possessive: POSS
2. genitive: GEN
3. proprietive: PPV
4. property: PRY
5. relationalizer: RLR.

¹ VAL.OP1: some unanalyzed valency operator.

² Kibrik 2012 even argues that only case labels should be used to name syntactic functions. This would render rational linguistic communication about such topics impossible.

Kibrik, Andrej A. 2012, "What’s in the head of head-marking languages?" Suihkonen, Pirkko & Comrie, Bernard & Solovyev, Valery (eds.), Argument structure and grammatical relations: a cross-linguistic typology. Amsterdam: Benjamins; 211-240.