abstract Case

being Case-marked is assumed to be a universal property of overt nominal expressions. Whenever there is no visible marking, we assume there to be invisible Case on the given nominal expression.

accusative Case

the case of DPs appearing after verbs, prepositions and visible subjects of infinitival clauses. In English it is visible only on certain pronouns, e.g. him/her.

adjunction

a type of movement where a new position is formed as a result of the movement creating an adjunction structure, like the (simplified) movement of the PP in the following tree structure representation where the S node is doubled:

agent

one of the thematic or theta-roles, where the argument deliberately performs an action, as Jamie in Jamie sang a song or Robert in Robert kicked the cat. In terms of the UTAH the agentive theta-role is assigned to the specifier position of vP, similarly to experiencer arguments.

arguments

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

bound morpheme

a morpheme that has to attach to another morpheme, it cannot stand on its own, e.g. ed, ment, un . See also free morpheme

Case position

a position where (nominative or accusative) Case can be assigned.

clause

a structure containing a (visible or invisible) subject and a predicate.

complement

an argument which follows the verb, or, more generally, a phrase selected by a head.

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.

determiner phrase (DP)

a phrase headed by a central determiner or the possessive ’s morpheme. The complement of a DP is an NP, the specifier the DP the possessive ending attaches to.

direct object

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

event structure

verbs can express simple or complex events. Event structure describes what sub-events an event expressed by a certain verb is made up of. This has an effect on the syntactic organisation of elements within the VP. There is supposed to be an isomorphism between event structure and the structure of the VP: a VP breaks up into sub-vPs/VPs in a one-to-one correspondence with the sub-events.

indirect object

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

isomorphism

a one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets.

light verb

a verb occupying the head of a vP used in combination with another element, typically a noun or verb, where the light verb’s contribution to the meaning of the whole construction is less than that of a fully thematic main verb, e.g. to take a shower=to shower. Certain verbs expressing aspectual (be, have) or modal (let) meaning also belong here. According to the proposals in the present book the following constituents can appear within the vP in a visible or abstract form (see also vP-shells):

– agentive arguments in the specifier positions

– experiencer arguments in the specifier position

– goal arguments in the double-object construction as specifiers

– the passive -en morpheme in the head of vP

– the aspectual morphemes -en and -ing in the head of vP

– the tense morpheme in the head of vP

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.

multiple light verb

the internal structure of the VP and the structure of the event expressed by the verb are isomorphic. If the event structure of the predicate is complex we have multiple light verbs in the structure. Light verbs can also express tense and aspect.

nominative Case

the Case assigned to DPs in the subject position of finite clauses. The Case assigner is the finite Inflectional head.

object

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

predicate

the part of the clause excluding the subject giving information about the subject: Mary [is clever/likes chocolate/is waiting for Jamie/was in bed/is a university student].

preposition

a syntactic unit preceding its complement, the most often a DP defining a special syntactic and/or semantic relationship between the complement and another constituent: cat in the bag/grapes of wrath/tea without sugar/a reduction of taxes. Feature composition: [–F, –N, –V].

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.

specifier position

a position defined by X-bar Theory. The specifier is sister to X', daughter of XP. It is a phrasal position, the nature of the phrase depends on what it is the specifier of. E.g. the specifier of IP is the subject, the specifier of DP is the possessor in possessive structures.

subject position

the position where subjects appear in the tree. The base position of the subject depends on its theta role. Agents and experiencers are generated in Spec,vP. Theme subjects appear in Spec,VP. These positions are not Case positions, so the subjects move to the canonical subject position, Spec, IP.

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.

unaccusative verb

a verb taking one argument to which it assigns a theme theta-role in the specifier position of a VP. They may also optionally take a location or path argument expressed by a PP. Some of the unaccusative verbs in English are arrive, appear, sit, they are typically verbs of movement or location. Unaccusative verbs can appear in the existential there construction or locative inversion structures. They do not take objects of any kind, see also cognate object.

Uniform Theta-role Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH)

a Θ-role is assigned in the same structural position in all structures in which it is present.

verb

a word used to describe an event or situation that can appear in one of the five verb forms. Feature composition: [–N, +V, –F].

previous next

Basic English Syntax with Exercises

5.2.6 Multiple complement verbs

So far we have been concerned with verbs that have either one or two arguments, but there are cases of verbs with more. In this section we will look at a number of verbs which have three arguments, again trying to maintain the UTAH and using this as a guide for the analysis of the VP’s structure.

Within the standard X-bar structure there are two positions in which we find arguments: specifier and complement:

(110)

Verbs with more than two arguments have therefore been considered as problematic. However, once we consider the role of light verbs as assigners of Θ-roles regulated by the thematic verb, we can see that it is possible to extend the Θ-roles assigning domain of a thematic verb to more than two positions. This is essentially the approach we will adopt here.

As a first case of a multiple complement verb, consider verbs of placement:

(111)aPorter put the book on the shelf
bPrudence placed the penguin on the podium
cSteve stored the potatoes in the cellar
dKaren kept the hamster in a cage

Each of these predicates involves an agent, a theme and a locative. It is fairly obvious what the structure should be from what we have discussed so far. The agent is introduced as the specifier of a light verb, the theme is the specifier of the thematic VP and the locative PP is in the complement position:

(112)

Of course, the verb moves to the light verb position and the word order is as predicted. That the complement position of the thematic verb is the position to which the locative Θ-role is assigned is supported by the fact that this seems to be where we find locative PPs with unaccusative verbs, which we have argued do not involve a light verb:

(113)

The event structures of these verbs however indicate that the analysis might be a little more complex than we have indicated in (112). For example, consider what is involved in ‘putting’. There is an agent who performs some action and there is a theme which undergoes a change of position and there is a location where the theme ends up. Thus the event structure seems to be:

(114) Porter put the book on the shelf
e = e1 → e2 → e3: e1 = ‘Porter did something’
  e2 = ‘the book changes location’
  e3 = ‘the book is on the shelf’

An isomorphic analysis of the VP would have an extra light verb than indicated in (112). We will see that perhaps there is evidence for this.

Another similar set of verbs involves a PP denoting a goal or beneficiary:

(115)aGary gave a present to Petunia
bSonia sent the letter to Larry
cKnut knitted a sweater for Susan
dBarry baked a cake for Karen

Again, the arguments are similar, involving an agent, a theme and a PP complement expressing the goal or beneficiary and so we can expect the structure to be similar. This structure is sometimes called the dative construction. The interesting thing about these verbs is that they can often enter into another construction which means virtually the same thing as the dative, only involving two DP complements:

(116)aGary gave Petunia a present
bSonia sent Larry the letter
cKnut knitted Susan a sweater
dBarry baked Karen a cake

This is known as the double object construction as the verb has two objects, traditionally referred to as the indirect and the direct objects respectively.

But the analysis of this construction is problematic:

(117)

In this structure the theme is sitting in the complement position of the thematic verb, not the specifier, and the goal is in the specifier. The indirect object is obviously interpreted in the same way as the PP is in the dative construction and so we should expect it to appear in the complement position if the UTAH holds. We might try to account for the properties of the double object construction via a movement analysis, using the dative construction as the underlying arrangement as this seems relatively unproblematic. The question is, what moves and where does it move to? A minimal assumption is that besides the verb moving to the light verb position, one of the arguments moves to change their order. Thus, either the theme moves backwards or the goal moves forwards. If the theme moves backwards, it isn’t clear what position it would move to and moreover it isn’t clear why it would move, given that the position it occupies seems to be a Case position in virtually all other cases we have looked at. The goal argument is slightly different however. In the dative construction there is a preposition and this we might assume is what is responsible for providing the argument with its Case. In the double object construction, however, this preposition is not present and hence the argument cannot be assigned Case in the same way. This would then provide the motivation for the argument to move to a position in which it could get case. Considering the problem more closely the goal must move to a phrasal position between the specifier of the VP, occupied by the theme, and the light verb to which the main verb moves. The only possibility is that there is another specifier position between the two:

(118)

The remaining problems to solve are the identity of X and how the theme argument gets Case if the goal argument gets the Case assigned by the light verb. The obvious answer to the latter is that X provides the theme with its Case, which in turn suggests that X is a Case assigning head, i.e. a verb or a preposition. If X is a verb, we have a structure which is identical to those involving multiple light verbs:

(119)

Can this analysis be justified? If one thinks of the event structure involved in the meaning of these verbs they all seem to work as follows:

(120)e = e1 → e2 → e3: e1 = ‘X does something’
  e2 = ‘Y changes location or possession’
  s3 = ‘Y is in a certain location or possession’

In other words, if Gary gives Pete a present, Gary does something which causes the book to undergo a movement or change of possession, the result of which it ends up with Pete. The middle event, involving a change of position or possession is what provides us with the position for the moved goal:

(121)

The verb movement is as we have seen before. As both light verbs are bound morphemes, both will need supporting and so the verb will move from one to the other forming a complex head adjunction structure in the top head position. As far as Case relationships are concerned, the subject DP is in a Caseless position and hence will move to the clause subject position to get nominative Case. The indirect object gets accusative from the upper light verb in the position it moves to and the direct object gets Case from the lower light verb without moving. The word order is as predicted with the verb preceding both the objects and the indirect object moved in front of the direct object.

previous next