申論題

1. Many theories of argument structure have assumed some version of what is called here the SEMANTIC DETERMINIST HYPOTHESIS (henceforth SDH), which takes the licensing of a verb's arguments to be a function of its SEMANTIC properties and which therefore eliminates explicit SYNTACTIC representation of those arguments in lexical entries. One version of the SDH uses 'predicate decompositions' or 'event schemata', which have been claimed to overcome the shortcomings of 'role'-based theories. Pinker (1989) applies such an approach to the problem of 'syntactic alternations' in English, which includes the ditransitive, manifested by give and related verbs.