The Theta System Argument Structure at the Interface

by Everaert, Martin; Marelj, Marijana; Siloni, Tal

• ISBN13: 9780199602520
• ISBN10: 0199602522
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-05-18
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Before she died in 2007, Tanya Reinhart had gone a long way towards developing the Theta System, a theory in which formal features defining the thematic relations of verbs are encoded in the lexicon, enabling an interface between the lexical component and the computational system/syntax, directly, and the Inference system, indirectly. This book considers the recent results and evaluations of Tanya Reinhart's research in both theoretical and experimental domains. After a comprehensive presentation of the framework by the editors, distinguished linguists from all over the world examine the underpinning of the Theta System, compare the framework to alternative approaches, and consider its implications for the architecture of grammar. In addition, they consider and exemplify the applications of the system and offer improvements and extensions. The book is an important contribution to linguistic research. It engages in the key dialogue between competing lexicalist and syntactic approaches to lexico-semantic problems and does so in the context of an impressive array of new empirical data ranging from Germanic, Romance, and Slavic to Ugro-Finnish, and Semitic languages.

Author Biography

Martin Everaert is a Professor of Linguistics at Utrecht University. Marijana Marelj is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Utrecht University. Tal Siloni is a Professor of Linguistics at Tel Aviv University.

Table of Contents

General Preface	p. vii
List of Contributors	p. viii
Abbreviations	p. xi
The Theta System: an Introduction	p. 1
The Linguistic Expression of Causation	p. 20
The Content of Semantic Roles: Predicate-Argument Structure in Language and Cognition	p. 52
Combine	p. 78
In the Event of a Nominal	p. 103
Lexicon Uniformity and the Causative Alternation	p. 150
In Defence of the Non-Causative Analysis of Anticausatives	p. 177
Hidden Entries: a Psycholinguistic Study of Derivational Gaps	p. 200
To Have the Empty Theta-Role	p. 227
Emission Verbs	p. 251
Verbal Passives in English and Hebrew: a Comparative Study	p. 279
An Event Semantics for the Theta System	p. 308
Children Acquire Unaccusatives and A-Movement Very Early	p. 354
References	p. 379
Index	p. 401
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