Re: Theta role?

On Dec 14, 2004, at 7:41 PM, Tristan Mc Leay wrote:

> On 15 Dec 2004, at 1.22 pm, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>
>> 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.)
>
> I think And was talking about a particular special case of anadewism,
> eadewism (or aeadewism), '(an) English's already dunnit even worse'.
No. And was playing with the verb 'bet', which according to some
analyses takes four arguments.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie

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