Re: Theta role?

And wrote:
> Tom Wier:
> > there's almost no agreement on how many theta
> > roles exist, even among grammarians who practice within the same
> > theoretical framework. IMO, three is the best bet, since to my
> > knowledge there are no languages where an underived verb takes
> > more than three arguments,
>
> I'll bet you plenty that in English at least one verb seems to
> take four arguments...
Perhaps I should have been clearer.  I was talking about verbs
which take four *NP* arguments.  On some analyses, English verbs
like 'buy' and 'sell' take four arguments, but one of those must,
in every dialect I know of, be prepositional.  These constructions
in Georgian and Abkhaz on the contrary involve four NP arguments.
(I can't speak for Abkhaz, but in Georgian the constructions
alternate with variants having a postposition for the fourth
argument.)

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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