Do verbs have argument structure?

Åfarli, Tor A.

doi:10.1075/la.108.04afa

In:Argument Structure
Edited by Eric J. Reuland, Tanmoy Bhattacharya and Giorgos Spathas
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 108] 2007
► pp. 1–16

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Do verbs have argument structure?

Tor A. Åfarli | Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)

Published online: 28 November 2007

https://doi.org/10.1075/la.108.04afa

I argue that the mainstream view of the lexicon-syntax interface whereby a verb’s lexically specifi ed argument structure is projected as syntactic structure is wrong. Instead, I argue for the neo-constructionist view that what we perceive as the argument structure of the verb is really determined by the syntax, namely by syntactico-semantic frames that are generated independently of verbs and other lexical items. That is, argument structure is not projected from the verb and the verb’s semantic-conceptual properties, but it is rather something that the verb getsby being inserted in a particular syntactico-semantic frame.

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