Argument-Function Linking in Resultatives

Abstract

This paper challenges one prominent common feature in Carrier and Randall’s (1992) account of English resultative constructions and Li’s (1995) account of Chinese resultative compounds: a weakening of the θ-Criterion by allowing more than one theta role to be assigned to an argument position. While accepting the argument structures and the constituent structures these two papers have argued for, this paper demonstrates that strict one-to-one argument-function linking should not and need not be relaxed and how it is maintained in an account formulated in a simplified lexical mapping theory of LFG, where a feature structure interfaces between the constituent structure and the argument structure. The account of Chinese resultatives hinges upon role suppression, a notion independently motivated; the account of English resultatives relies on functional control, also an independently motivated notion.