Alexandra Cornilescurom 'From Theta-Structure to Argument Licensing' 4 s éminaires

[carmen sorin]

Alexandra Cornilescu, Professeur à l'Université de Bucarest

invitée de l'UFR de linguistique de Paris Diderot donnera 4 seminaires sur

'From Theta-Structure to Argument Licensing'

*6 mai 14h-16, salle 137 Olympe de Gouges*, 8 rue Einstein
1. *A rich lexicon and how to use it*, *the projectionist view*

 Defining argument structure The projectionist view Theta -Theory: a rich
lexicon + principles of projection (linking). Lexical representation. UTAH
and the difficulties of maintaining it when confronted with alternations.
Thematic Hierarchies and their problems; two tentative solutions: fewer
roles (proto roles, Dowty); more fine-grained roles (Pesetsky). Decomposing
theta roles: theta features and generalizations they can be used to
express. How to deal with alternations: a) more fine grained roles; b)
-arity operations
*Bibliography*: Grimshaw 1990, *Argument Structure*, Reinhart, 2000, *The
Theta system: the syntactic realization of verbal concepts*,
Pesetsky,1984, *Experiencers
and cascades* , Dowty 1990, “Thematic proto-roles and argument selection”,
Rappaport &Hovav 2005, *Argument realization*


*13 mai 14h-16, salle 137 Olympe de Gouges*

*2*. *The constructivist view*

Verb meaning is relational and hierarchical (Larson, Hale & Keyser) Roles
are interpretations of particular syntactic configurations; there are so
few theta roles, because there are no theta- roles. Larson’s shells
–investigating the internal structure of the VP. Result: a syntactic
lexicon for verbs and other lexical categories, syntactic constraints on
possible verb meanings. When l-syntax turns into s-syntax (e.g.
Harley(2009) : lexical decomposition down to acategorial roots: a sometimes
problematic enterprise.

Bibliography, Larson, 1988, “On the double object construction”. Hale&
Keyser, 2002, *Prolegomena to a theory of argument structure*, Harley,
2009, “Lexical decomposition in modern syntactic theory”, Borer, 2011, “In
the event of a nominal”



*15 mai 14h-16, salle 533 Olympe de Gouges (attention au changement de
salle)*

*3*. *Event licensing of arguments*

 Two conceptualizations of events: a) briefly on the localist approach
(Gruber, Jackendoff); b) the aspectual approach: reviewing Borer (2005): a
prevailing neo-Davidsonian Semantics coupled with a syntactic view of
a-structure, with a minimal lexicon The fundamental premise: argument
structure is licensed by *functional syntactic structure*, functional
structure which is interpreted as *event structure*. This syntactic
structure where the lexical verb is embedded affects aspects of its basic
meaning. To the extent that argument structure is altogether severed from
the properties of the lexical head, the expectation is to get massive
polysemy. Claim: the best characterization of the verb’s variable behavior
is through the projection of functional structure, interpreted as event
structure. Aspectual roles and aspectual properties of the event may be
derived from the functional structure of the clause, not the other way
round. An example: deriving Dowty’s correlations: Agentive, Atelic:
definitely unergative // Non-agentive telic: definitely unaccusative.
Properties of unergatives and unaccusatives which do not follow from aspect
and cannot be predicated from a semantic standpoint.


*20 mai 14h-16, salle 137 Olympe de Gouges*

4. *Argument structure, syntactic functions and case-licensing *

>From this perspective there are two problems which are of interest: a)
which generalization regarding syntactic functions are correlated with the
semantics (i.e. the theta-role, event semantics) of the DP; e.g. the
correlation Agent/Subject; b) the Visibility Condition: are there any
reliable correlations between morphologic cases and theta-roles? Regarding
the first problem, one tendency in current work is to identify functional
heads which are responsible for introducing syntactic functions into the
clausal representation, thus relating a-structure and syntactic functions.
For instance, the subject is introduced by its own Voice head (since
Kratzer 1996), the direct object is licensed in an Aspect head (Borer
2005), the indirect object is introduced by an Applicative head. These
derivational steps should be coupled with a neo-Davidsonian compositional
semantics of event structure. Regarding the second problem, the correlation
between morphologic case and theta roles has been proved to be unreliable.
DPs are case-licensed regarding their abstract case relational feature;
morphologic case can only be determined at the end of the derivation,
through syntactic information sent at PF.

Bibliography Kratzer, 1996, “Severing the external argument from its verb”,
Borer 2005, The normal course of events”, Pylkkanen, 2008, *Introducing
arguments*, Bowers, 2010, *Arguments as relations*, Sigurðsson, 2012,
“Minimalist C/case”)

 Olympe de Gouges, 8 rue Einstein, 75013
carmen.sorin at linguist.univ-paris-diderot.fr
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