LINB06H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Projection Principle, Lexical Item, Subcategorization
25 Oct 2017
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The x-bar theory is too unconstrained and can give ungrammatical sentences. We can fix this by looking at selection restrictions on complements and subjects. For example, smile, laugh, sneeze, bark: transitive verb: a verb that takes one complement. For example, to see, to eat: ditransitive verb: a verb that takes two complements. Most common roles: agent: the initiator or doer of an action. It is always underlined: internal: the one assigned to the complement (direct or indirect object, expletive pronoun: an impersonal pronoun that can be the subject. There is no external argument and theta roles, since there is no semantic content. This violates the second condition of the theta criterion. Thus, it is ungrammatical: sentence (25c) has too many arguments. This violates the first condition of the theta criterion: sentence (26) shows how the theta roles are mismatched. The experiencer theta role is supposed to be sarah, but syntax receives it instead of its role of a dp subject.
