arguments

the participants minimally involved in an action defined by the predicate. The complements and the subject, the latter also called an external argument.

dative construction

an alternative to the verb–indirect object–direct object construction where the indirect object appears in the form of a PP: I gave an apple to Peter as opposed to I gave Peter an apple.

direct object

the DP complement of a verb most often bearing the theta-role of patient or theme.

indirect object

one of the objects of e.g. the verb give in the double object construction assigned the theta-role of beneficiary.

movement

S-structure constituents do not always appear in the position where they are base-generated in D-structure, they often move from their base positions to other structural positions. There can be various reasons motivating movement, see wh-movement and DP-movement.

object

a DP complement immediately following the verb. It can move to the subject position in passive sentences. See also direct object, indirect object.

preposition phrase (PP)

a phrase headed by a preposition. It usually takes a DP complement but certain types of CPs can also appear in the complement position of PPs. PPs themselves can be complements of different constituents such as verbs, nouns and adjectives.

pronoun

a DP that usually refers to another DP, but contains only the grammatical features (number, person, gender) of it (I, you, he, she, etc.). Its interpretation depends on linguistic factors or the situation. Within the DP pronouns occupy the D head position, as they cannot be modified by determiners even on very special readings (as opposed to grammaticality of the John I met yesterday)

theme

one of the thematic roles where the argument is not affected by the action described by the verb e.g. in Peter saw John nothing directly happens to John as a result of being seen. In terms of the UTAH the theme theta-role is assigned to the specifier position of the VP.

there-construction: see existential there-construction.

theta role

the semantic role of the participants as required by the predicate. E.g. verbs define what kind of semantic relationship is to be established between the verb itself and the arguments of the verb, and arguments are selected accordingly. The verb kick calls for an agent subject, so its subject position cannot be occupied by e.g. my CD-player.

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Basic English Syntax with Exercises

2.2.3 Indirect object

Some verbs can have more than one object:

(71)Lucy lent Larry a lasso

This construction is known as the double object construction, for obvious reasons.

Interestingly, the two objects do not have the same properties. For one thing, their orders are fixed in Standard English, though there are dialectal differences, especially if either or both objects are expressed by a pronoun:

(72)aLucy lent a lasso Larry(ungrammatical in Standard English)
bLucy lent him it/it him(both grammatical in non-Standard English)

We call the object that immediately follows the verb in Standard English the indirect object and the one that follows this, the direct object. The indirect object is more often than not assigned the goal or beneficiary Θ-role by the verb while the direct object bears the theme Θ-role.

Restricting ourselves to the discussion of the standard dialect, we find the two objects also differ in terms of passive movement. Only the indirect object can undergo this movement:

(73)aLarry was lent a lasso
b* a lasso was lent Larry

The direct object can only undergo passive movement if the goal argument is expressed as a PP, in what is often called the dative alternate or the dative construction:

(74)aLucy lent a lasso to Larry
ba lasso was lent to Larry

The notions of subject, direct object and indirect object are known as grammatical functions. It is fairly clear that they are defined as positions in the English sentence, in that any element which sits in those positions will be interpreted as subject and object respectively, no matter if this makes sense or not:

(75)aEddy ate his dinner
b?his dinner ate Eddy

The fact that people eat dinners and that dinners do not usually eat people is irrelevant as far as the interpretation of these sentences is concerned. What is important is which position each argument occupies and hence which grammatical function each argument has, and this alone is what determines how to interpret the sentence.

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