Middles and Argument Structure across Languages

Middles across languages share a core of common semantic characteristics. Yet, they exhibit striking differences, as shown on a language-sample that includes Dutch, English, Hebrew, French, Italian, Polish, and Serbo-Croatian. The author argues that a single ARB-operation, inspired by the ARB-saturation of Chierchia for impersonals, can derived the shared semantic properties of middles across languages. The theoretical framework assumed in the study is Reinhart's Theta System. The analysis rests on a further development of the thematic feature-system. The author argues that when Middle Formation applies in the lexicon, it involves a feature-change, creating an ARB-role. When in applies in the syntax (LF), role manipulation is not available, and it involves the arbitrarization of a variable instead. The syntactic differences follow from a locus of the operation. Other proposed modification of the system facilitate the solutions to puzzles of theta realizations other than middles.

Autorentext

Marijana Marelj is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Utrecht University. Her research interests include the architecture of grammar, properties of the computational system/syntactic theory, Interfaces.