Verb TypesThe thematic relationships are straightforward. In the lower VP we have a situation
fairly similar to the VP in the previous section. The theme argument, the vase, is in the
specifier of the VP as we discovered previously. The verb break therefore looks fairly
similar to an unaccusative verb (we will investigate the properties of this type of verb
more fully in the next section). The specifier of the vP is interpreted as an agent and
therefore the light verb is clearly not unaccusative. This is not surprising as
unaccusative verbs either have no complement or prepositional ones, and here the light
verb has a VP complement. In terms of the UTAH, we might therefore propose that the
agent -role is assigned to the specifier of a (light) verb which has a VP complement.
If we include this complex VP in a sentence, we note that it is the agent that moves
to the clausal subject position and the theme appears to remain inside the VP:
(30) she 1 may have [vP t 1 made [VP the window open]]
As the theme does not move, we can conclude that it gets Case in its original position.
Interestingly, there is no Case assigned when there is no light verb forcing the theme to
move out of the VP:
(31) the window 1 could have [VP t 1 opened]
This is identical to what happens with unaccusative verbs (compare (31) with
(22)): the theme subject receives no Case in its original VP internal position and hence
has to move to the nominative subject position. So how does the theme get Case in
(30)? The obvious difference is the presence of the light verb and therefore we might
assume that it is this verb that is responsible for assigning accusative Case to the
theme:
(32) vP
DP v'
she v VP
made DP V'
the vase V
break
Consider the event structure expressed by this verbal complex. It is fairly clear that
there is one (complex) event described by the light verb and thematic verb complex:
there is just one clause here with one subject. The event, however, is made up of two
sub-events: she does something and this causes the vase to break:
(33) e = e 1 Æ e 2 : e 1 = ‘she did something’
e 2 = ‘the vase broke’
accusative