The Grammar of Implicit Arguments

• Applicant: Dr. Marcel Pitteroff
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 405203562

A verb specifies how many constituents it has to co-occur with for a sentence to be well-formed. These constituents are called arguments of the verb. Typically, if not all arguments are realized, the sentence is ungrammatical. Argument structure alternations, such as passivization, middle formation, etc. are exceptions to this restriction. They constitute contexts in which an argument of the verb may legitimately remain unrealized/implicit. Recent research has shown an increasing interest in the properties of implicit arguments (IAs) by addressing questions such as - Where and how are IAs represented?- How many different IAs must be distinguished?- Is there cross-linguistic variation in the inventory of IAs?Depending on the diagnostics used to identify IAs, however, very different, and often incompatible conclusions regarding those questions have been reached. Furthermore, passives of different types have figured prominently in the discussion, but it has rarely been investigated whether the results can be extended to other relevant constructions, such as, e.g., middles. This project will fill this gap by investigating the grammar of IAs in various argument structure alternations across languages. The goal is twofold: (i) Compile an inventory of IA-diagnostics combined with the development of detailed analyses of what the individual diagnostics really tell us about the nature of the IA. (ii) Provide a comprehensive overview over the different types of IAs and their properties. Theoretically, the work is couched within the Minimalist framework, but its results will have theory-independent significance and applicability. The project focusses on the grammatical status of implicit external arguments, and re-investigates the evidence that has been provided in favor of a syntactic representation of these arguments (e.g. as some type of covert nominal argument). We show that this evidence is not conclusive. Our null hypothesis is that such arguments are only present in the semantics, namely as lambda variables on functional heads (that are subsequently bound). We test the plausibility of this hypothesis from two directions: The first direction involves the compatibility of this hypothesis with IA-diagnostics, such as the ability of the IA to control, license instrument PPs, or be modified by depictives. In this context, we will investigate what these diagnostics are sensitive to (goal (i)). The second direction involves the question whether this hypothesis captures the properties of IAs in other environments (middles, restructuring infinitives, nominalizations; goal (ii)). This also allows us to address the question of how agentivity is represented in these constructions – an issue that has remained unsolved so far.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants