Glossarysuperlative form of adjectives: comparison to a higher (or in the case of least lower)
degree when there are more than two agents involved: He is the tallest of
us. The periphrastic way of forming the superlative is with the help of
most: He is the most sophisticated man I have ever met.
S(urface)-structure: post-movement structure containing the traces of moved
constituents.
syntax: the study of sentence structure
tense: a syntactic category with the help of which we can locate an event or
situation in time. In syntactic representation information about tense can be
found within the vP appearing directly under the IP in the form of -s, -ed
or the zero tense morpheme.
that-relative: a relative clause that is introduced by the complementiser that: The
cat that I found yesterday.
thematic category: categories with lexical content: verbs, nouns, adjectives,
prepositions.
thematic hierarchy: the hierarchy of the assignment of thematic roles. Agents
are higher than experiencers, which in turn are higher than themes. The
theta-roles lower on the hierarchy have to be assigned first (if present).
thematic role: see theta-role.
theme: one of the thematic roles where the argument is not affected by the
action described by the verb e.g. in Peter saw John nothing directly happens
to John as a result of being seen. In terms of the UTAH the theme theta-
role is assigned to the specifier position of the VP.
there-construction: see existential there-construction.
Theta Criterion: – a -role must be assigned to one and only one argument
- an argument must bear one and only one -role.
theta-grid: that part of a predicate’s lexical entry which informs us about what
theta-roles the predicate has.
theta-marking: the assignment of theta-roles.
theta role: the semantic role of the participants as required by the predicate. E.g.
verbs define what kind of semantic relationship is to be established between
the verb itself and the arguments of the verb, and arguments are selected
accordingly. The verb kick calls for an agent subject, so its subject
position cannot be occupied by e.g. my CD-player.
Theta Theory: a module of GB accounting for how verbs assign theta-roles to
their arguments.
three-place predicate: a predicate with three arguments, e.g. give.
to-infinitive: an infinitive appearing with to, a non-finite verb-form.
topic: an element appearing in front of the subject with a special interpretation
(something like ‘as far as topic is concerned’). Topics have either already
been mentioned before in a conversation or can be interpreted as easily
accessible due to the context.
topicalisation: a process which moves an element interpreted as a topic to the front
of the sentence.