The twoopenarguments X and Y in (25b) are bothObjects, whichmust bothbe expressed by NP arguments. Hence
enteris a transitiveverb. A similar analysis gives us the transitiveverbsapproach(‘go toward’),leave(‘go from’), andpass
(‘go past’).
Now suppose we“incorporate”the Path-functionDOWNWARDinto a verb along withGO:[EventGO([Objectx], [Path
DOWNWARD])]. SinceDOWNWARDrequires no argument, only one argument is left to be satisfied. This gives us the
meaning of the intransitive verbfall. Next suppose we incorporate something into the remaining argument ofGO,
lexically specifying what falls. Then there are no arguments left for the syntax to satisfy, and we get zero-argument
verbs such asrainandsnow.
Let me do one more such case. The verbputrequires three syntactic arguments:Fran put the food in the fridge.It
decomposes as a causative inchoative:‘Fran caused the food to come to be in the fridge.’ In tree form, the
decomposition looks like (26).
(Recall that‘INCH’is inchoative,‘come to be’. I use here the three-argument