Glossarytrace: moved constituents leave traces in the position where they have been
moved from. Once a trace is present in a structure, no other constituent can
land in the position occupied by it.
transitive verb: a verb with a nominal complement, e.g. read, buy. The agentive
subject occupies the specifier position of vP, the theme object
occupies the specifier position of VP.
tree diagram: a representation of grammatical structure containing nodes connected
by branches.
two-place predicate: a predicate with two arguments, e.g. write.
unaccusative verb: a verb taking one argument to which it assigns a theme
theta-role in the specifier position of a VP. They may also optionally
take a location or path argument expressed by a PP. Some of the
unaccusative verbs in English are arrive, appear, sit, they are typically
verbs of movement or location. Unaccusative verbs can appear in the
existential there construction or locative inversion structures. They do
not take objects of any kind, see also cognate object.
underspecification: a feature can have values which are not determined. [±F] is
supposed to be such a feature in the classification of word categories. The
categories with underspecified features are the following: aspectual
auxiliaries [–N, +V], measure nouns [+N, –V], post-determiners [+N,
+V], the non-thematic, non-functional uses of the prepositions of and by
[–N, –V]
ungradable adjective: an adjective that has no comparative and superlative forms.
The absence of these forms is due to semantic reasons. E.g. polar, atomic
Uniform Theta-role Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH): a -role is assigned in the
same structural position in all structures in which it is present.
unpronounced: see phonologically empty
verb: a word used to describe an event or situation that can appear in one of the
five verb forms. Feature composition: [–N, +V, –F].
verb forms: base form, past tense form, the third person singular present form,
the perfective (same as passive) form and the progressive form.
verb phrase (VP): a phrase headed by a verb. It is in the VP together with the vp(s)
that the basic argument structure of the clause is formed, thus, theta-
role assignment takes place here. The specifier position of the VP is
occupied by the constituent bearing the theme/patient theta role. In
passive structures this constituent has to move from the specifier position of
the verb to the specifier position of IP in order to get Case. A VP can
have different types of complements such as a DP, CP, IP, PP.
verb–particle construction: a structure where the particle appearing together with the
verb does not function as a preposition, which forms a unit with its DP
complement. Rather, the particle seems to form a unit with the verb. Several
differences between verb–particle constructions and prepositional verb
structures follow from this, e.g. a preposition can be moved together with its
DP complement, a particle cannot: in this hut, he lived for ten years/*off this
hat, he took in an instant.