g. A wall surrounds/divides the city.
h. This book has/contains/comprises 13 chapters.
i. The meeting lasted seven hours. The book weighs three pounds.
j. Harry owns a BMW. Larry lacks money.
k. My patience equals/exceeds my enthusiasm.
l. The doctor underwent an operation.
m. This outcome means trouble.Other syntactic realizations of two-argument verbs are illustrated in (34).
(34) a.Bill went into the room. [NP-PP]
b. Jill became tired. [NP-AP]
c. Phil thinks/supposes/knows that the earth isflat. [NP-clause]
d. That the earth isflat bothers/frightens/disgusts Gil. [clause-NP]
e. That the dog is sick never occurred to Lil. [clause-PP]
f. That Til isn't here proves that he's guilty. [clause-clause]
g. It bothers/frightens/disgusts Shmill that the earth isflat. [dummyit-NP-clause]
h. It seems/appears to Otto that the dog is sick. [dummy /f-PP-clause]The possibilitiesfor three-argumentverbsdefybriefenumeration. However, itis importanttonoteagainthatthesame
syntactic configuration can support wildly different semantic relations (35), and that verbs with very similar semantics
map to different sets of syntactic configurations (36).
(35) a.Bob gave Janice some breakfast.
[stereotypical meaning for this configuration:
transfer of something to a recipient]
b. The administration denied Henry a raise.
c. The book cost me $78.
d. The job took Sa m4 hours.
e. Norbert envies you your high reputation.
f. They named/called the baby Yael.
g. Pat considers/deems Fran a genius.^65(36) a.Bobgave/served/*provided/*supplied Janice some breakfast.
b. Bob gave/served/provided/supplied some breakfast to Janice.
c. Bob * gave/* served/provided/supplied Janice with some breakfast.136 ARCHITECTURAL FOUNDATIONS
(^65) Thefinal NP argument ofconsider is a predicate nominal, often thought to be a different syntactic configuration fro mordinary NPs. However, I believethat many special
syntactic properties of predicate NPs can be made to follow from their expressing a non-referential semantic argument; see sections 12.3 and 12.4.