Chapter 1 - Grammatical Foundations: Words(68) a the villain awaited his trial
b the villain waited for his trial
(69) a the villain awaited for his trial
b the villain waited his trial
What we see by these examples is that different verbs are followed by different
complements. The verb await must be followed by a nominal complement (i.e. one
expressed with a noun: his trial) whereas the verb wait must be followed by a
prepositional complement (expressed with a preposition: for his trial). Although there
is often a connection between the thematic interpretation of the complement argument
and its category, patients tend to be nominal and locations tend to be expressed by
prepositional complements for example, it is not always possible to predict the
category of the complement from its thematic role. In (68) for example, the two
complements seem to be interpreted fairly similarly, but still they are expressed by
complements of different categorial statuses. It follows that the category of the
complement should be stated as a separate piece of information in a verb’s lexical
entry:
(70) await category: [–F, –N, +V]
-grid: <agent, goal>
subcat: [nominal]
wait category: [–F, –N, +V]
-grid: <agent, goal>
subcat: [prepositional]
What is represented in these lexical entries is that the two verbs are both two-place
predicates taking agent and goal (something that an action is directed towards)
arguments, but that the goal of await must be nominal while that of wait must be
prepositional. The part of the lexical entry that states the categorial status of the
complement is known as a subcategorisation frame. Thus a lexical entry for a typical
verb will consist of a theta-grid and a subcategorisation frame in addition to
phonological and semantic information.
Traditionally, verbs which have nominal complements are called transitive and
those without intransitive. The verb await is a transitive verb and wait is intransitive.
However, another kind of intransitive verb has no complement at all:
(71) a the villain laughed
b the dragon flew
c Susan slept
These verbs are one-place predicates with their arguments on the left. Their lexical
entries might be represented as follows:
(72) laugh category: [–F, –N, +V]
-grid:
subcat: [∆]