Re: Theta role?

On 15 Dec 2004, at 1.22 pm, Thomas R. Wier wrote:

>> And wrote:
>>> 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.)
>
> I think And was talking about a particular special case of anadewism,
> eadewism (or aeadewism), '(an) English's already dunnit even worse'.
But it hasn't, as far as I know.  That was my point.  There are no
dialects of English where verbs like "sell" take three four NP
arguments. In Georgian and Abkhaz, there *are* such verbs, though
they're not derived.

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