Abstract: Based on a brief review of the working principles of casemarking effects, this paper reexamines the combinatory relations of grammatical functions in both Chinese and English under the condition of static logic and extensional deviation. Contrary to what is claimed in Casemarking Effects and Language Variations, further examination indicates that there is no significant difference in the selection and release of grammatical functions between Chinese and English, and the socalled differences are a result of the researcher's unclear definition and inadequate research methodology. Due to the lack of a unified criterion in treating the combinations in both languages and a narrow focus on atypical Chinese combinations that go against static logic, the researcher has failed to see that casemarking effects could hardly explain numerous examples in English where the release of grammatical functions is also not compliant with static logic. Therefore, it might be argued that the differences in the release of grammatical functions in both languages are parametric, rather than principled. It is noteworthy that, while conducting contrastive analysis, researchers should differentiate typical language samples from atypical ones and guard against overgeneralization.

Key words: arguments, subject, object, parameter, principle, thetaroles