Suggested answer for Exercise 5

The Theta Criterion states that each argument can have only one thematic role and each thematic role can be assigned to only one argument.

(1)	a	I want to leave now.
	b	John persuaded Bill to leave.
	c	I want Mary to leave now.
	d	Mary, I really like her.
	e	I expected Bill to win the race.

 

(i) In sentence (1a) the DP John seems to have two thematic roles. Intuitively, John is the ‘wanter’ and the ‘leaver’. This intuition can be supported by giving the lexical entry of the two predicates of the sentence. want and leave. The predicate want is a two-place predicate whose lexical entry is in (2):

(2)		want	category: [–F, –N, +V]
			Θ-grid: <agent proposition>
			subcat: clausal

The verb ‘leave’ is a one-place predicate whose lexical entry is in (3):

(3)		leave	category: [–F, –N, +V]
			Θ-grid: <agent>
			subcat: 0

The verb want assigns an agent theta role to its subject. The verb leave has an agent theta role that is assigned to the DP John. As the DP has two theta roles the sentence is predicted to be ungrammatical. But the sentence is fully grammatical, therefore problematic for the Theta Criterion.

 

(ii) In sentence (1b) there are two verbs, persuade and kill. Persuade is a three-place predicate as is indicated in (4a), while kill is a two-place predicate as in (4b):

(4)	a	persuade	category: [–F, –N, +V]
			Θ-grid: <agent, theme, proposition>
			subcat: nominal, sentential
	b	kill	category: [–F, –N, +V]
			Θ-grid: <agent>
			subcat: nominal

It seems that the person, who is persuaded, is the theme of the verb persuade and the subject of the verb leave is the DP Bill. The DP Bill has a ‘theme’ thematic role assigned by the verb persuade and an agent thematic role assigned by the verb leave contrary to the Theta Criterion.

 

(iii) The relevant structure of sentence (in bold letters) (1c) is seemingly identical with sentence (1b) as in (5).

(5)

DPnom – V – DPacc – V – (DP)

But the lexical entries of the verbs suggest that the two sentences have fairly different structures. The lexical entries of the predicates in (i) are repeated here as (2)’ and (3)’.

(2)’		want	category: [–F, –N, +V]
			Θ-grid: <agent proposition>
			subcat: clausal
(3)’		leave	category: [–F, –N, +V]
			Θ-grid: <agent>
			subcat: 0

The verb want is a two-place predicate that has an agent DP argument I and a clause, but no object DP. leave has one agentive argument. The DP Mary is assigned agent theta role by the verb leave. The DP Mary has only one theta role, therefore the Theta Criterion predicts that the sentence is grammatical.

 

(iv) In sentence (1d) the verb like is a two-place predicate as indicated in its lexical entry in (6).

(6)		like	category: [–F, –N, +V]
			Θ-grid: <experiencer, theme>
			subcat: nominal

The verb has an experiencer subject I and a theme object her. The object DP and the sentence-initial DP Mary have the same reference. The DP her is in the canonical object position, in Spec,VP and gets thematic role from the verb there. But it is not obvious what assigns thematic role to Mary. There are two options. One is that the verb assigns the theme theta role both to the DP Mary and to the DP her. The Theta Criterion does not allow this option. The other option is that the DP Mary is not the argument of the verb, but an adjunct. It is adjoined to the highest node in the sentence.

 

(v) In sentence (1e) there are two predicates: expect and win. The surface ordering of the constituents is identical with structure (5) repeated here as (5)’.

(5)’

DPnom – V – DPacc – V – (DP)

We have already seen that superficially the relevant part of sentences (1b) and (1c) are identical, but it turned out that it is not. The question is whether the verb expect behaves like the verb want or the verb persuade. To answer this question we need to know the lexical entry of the verbs in the sentence.

(7)	a	expect	category: [–F, –N, +V]
			Θ-grid: <experiencer, proposition>
			subcat: sentential
	b	win	category: [–F, –N, +V]
			Θ-grid: <agent, theme>
			subcat: nominal