A New Argument for the Lexical Underspecification of Causers

This article shows how a systematic impersonalization alternation in Russian provides additional evidence for underspecification in argument structure. In the case of a large class of lexically causative verbs, the causer is realized either as a volitional Agent in the nominative case or as an oblique-marked, nonvolitional causer, depending on how the event is construed. A causative theory of accusative is advanced, according to which the mere presence of external causation is a sufficient condition for accusative licensing, including those cases that lack an external argument altogether. The analysis is extended to explain accusative preservation in the Icelandic “fate accusative” construction

The Syntax of Argument Structure

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Voice and Diathesis in Slavic

There is general agreement that voice is a universal linguistic phenomenon despite the fact that there is no agreement as to what the constraints on voice and voice-like operations are

The syntax of argument structure

This book arrives at a modular classification of verb types within English and across languages. The book proposes a syntactic decompositional view of core verbal meaning, and sets out to account for the variability and systematicity of argument structure realization across verb types. It also proposes a novel view of lexical insertio

Radical defectivity: Implications of Xhosa expletive constructions

In Xhosa VSO clauses, subject agreement exhibits default features, objects cannot be pronominalized, a subject focus reading is obligatory, and experiencer verbs with two DP arguments are precluded. We argue that impoverished versions of T and v* in VSO clauses lack the probe features involved in subject agreement, EPP, object shift, and nominative/accusative valuation within Xhosa SVO sentences. Only an unusual focus-linked strategy can Case-license full DPs in VSO clauses, but this is incompatible with inherent Cases borne by arguments of experiencer verbs. We show that CPs and augmentless NPs appear in positions where DPs cannot surface because uCase is a feature of D. Given the striking evidence for abstract Case in Xhosa, we propose Case-friendly analyses for Bantu Case-theoretic anomalies that Xhosa shares.IS