Basic English Syntax with Exercises

two-place predicate

1.3.2 Predicates and arguments

What arguments are involved in any situation is determined by the meaning of the predicate. Sleeping can only involve one argument, whereas placing naturally involves three. We can distinguish predicates in terms of how many arguments they involve: sleep is a one-place predicate, see is a two-place predicate involving two arguments and place is a three-place predicate.

1.3.2 Predicates and arguments

36) clearly represents that sleep is a one-place predicate, hit and see are two-place predicates and place is a three-place predicate.

1.3.4.1 Verbs

To some extent, this is connected to the properties of the verb as a predicate: laugh is a one-place predicate and its only argument, an agent, tends to precede it, while defeat is a two-place predicate and takes its agent to the left and the patient to the right. If we consider a three-place predicate, a pattern begins to emerge:

1.3.4.1 Verbs

What is represented in these lexical entries is that the two verbs are both two-place predicates taking agent and goal (something that an action is directed towards) arguments, but that the goal of await must be nominal while that of wait must be prepositional. The part of the lexical entry that states the categorial status of the complement is known as a subcategorisation frame. Thus a lexical entry for a typical verb will consist of a theta-grid and a subcategorisation frame in addition to phonological and semantic information.

3.2.2.1 D-structure and Theta Theory

The verb arrive is a one-place predicate, having one Θ-role to assign which it assigns to the argument an unexpected package in (65a). The verb mend is a two-place predicate. It assigns the agent role to its subject and the patient role to its object.