Toward a Unified Theory of Argument Structure and Grammatical Function Changing Morphology

The traditional view of argument structure is roughly as follows: predicates merge directly with arguments to form larger constituents of the same category (VP, AP, PP, etc.). Each time merge applies a c-selection feature and/or θ-role requirement of the predicate is satisfied. Such theories are closely related to the Fregean view that a predicates are unsaturated expressions. Similarly, modifiers, though generally assumed to be added “outside” the maximal projection of a head and its arguments, are still projections of that same category. Despite its successes, this approach is still empirically deficient in many respects. At the same time, it is not sufficiently general enough to incorporate well-known descriptive generalizations concerning thematic structure or to deal in a unified fashion with languages in which argument structure is expressed by means of grammatical function changing morphology on the verbal root.