Basic English Grammar with Exercises

Exercise 4

i) The verb cough in the sentence Sam coughed is an intransitive verb.
Intransitive verbs take only one argument which is usually an agent. Since the specifier
of the VP is the position of the theme argument according to the UTAH, this position
is empty in this structure. The agent thematic role is assigned by the light verb to the
specifier position of the vP. So the base position of the agent argument is in the
specifier of the vP. Since this is no Case position, the DP has to move on to the
specifier of the IP in order to receive Case from the finite I head. The thematic verb
moves to the tense v and then frther on to I.

(9) CP

C'

C IP

DP 1 I'

Sam I vP

cough 2 + ed 3 v'

v vP

t 2 +t 3 t 1 v'

v VP

t 2 V'

V

t 2