Verb Types(111) a Porter put the book on the shelf
b Prudence placed the penguin on the podium
c Steve stored the potatoes in the cellar
d Karen kept the hamster in a cage
Each of these predicates involves an agent, a theme and a locative. It is fairly obvious
what the structure should be from what we have discussed so far. The agent is
introduced as the specifier of a light verb, the theme is the specifier of the thematic VP
and the locative PP is in the complement position:
(112) vP
DPagent v'
v VP
DPtheme V'
V PPlocative
Of course, the verb moves to the light verb position and the word order is as
predicted. That the complement position of the thematic verb is the position to which
the locative -role is assigned is supported by the fact that this seems to be where we
find locative PPs with unaccusative verbs, which we have argued do not involve a light
verb:
(113) VP
DP V'
the table V PP
sat in the kitchen
The event structures of these verbs however indicate that the analysis might be a
little more complex than we have indicated in (112). For example, consider what is
involved in ‘putting’. There is an agent who performs some action and there is a theme
which undergoes a change of position and there is a location where the theme ends up.
Thus the event structure seems to be:
(114) Porter put the book on the shelf
e = e 1 Æ e 2 Æ e 3 : e 1 = ‘Porter did something’
e 2 = ‘the book changes location’
e 3 = ‘the book is on the shelf’
An isomorphic analysis of the VP would have an extra light verb than indicated in
(112). We will see that perhaps there is evidence for this.
Another similar set of verbs involves a PP denoting a goal or beneficiary: