Reviewed by Fredrik Heinat, Sweden

This book explores the lexicon-syntax interface. One of the author’s basic assumptions is that syntactic argument structure is projected as a function of individual lexical items. Martin Haiden applies theta theory (TT; Reinhart and Siloni 2005) to a range of constructions in German. Ch. 1, ‘Lexical semantics and cognition’, contains a general background to the problem of linking arguments to thematic roles. Following a brief description of TT, H tries to tie its features to more general concepts (e.g. mental activity [m] and physical activity [c]). These concepts are grounded in a commonsense theory of physics and a commonsense theory of mind mechanisms (37).

In Ch. 2, ‘German verbs’, H applies TT to German verbs. Investigating arguments in transitive, anti-causative, and reflexive constructions, H concludes that TT’s predictions are mostly accurate. However, he suggests three (rather than TT’s two) contexts that allow nonrealizations of thematic roles: (i) underspecified clusters can be assigned to external—but not internal—arguments, (ii) the presence of both [+c] and [-c] allows for nonrealization of the internal argument, and (iii) the nonrealization of a [+m] cluster is possible if arguments are [+m], [-c, -m], or [-m].

Ch. 3, ‘A bare phrase structure of argument expressions’, develops a theory of syntactic projection. H claims that thematic roles are provided by lexical items and then merged with syntactic heads of the category noun or verb (V) and that the roles are assigned to syntactic categories of Vs (196). This means that thematic roles are treated as independent syntactic objects. This analysis also incorporates morphophonological aspects of causativization and derivational morphology.

Ch. 4, ‘Applications and extensions’, adopts this analysis to for infinitival complements such as present participles, modal infinitival complements, and other participial constructions. H claims that it is the infinitival suffix that checks the features of V, and, under certain circumstances, it can also realize the internal theta-role. Another claim is that intransitive manner of motion verbs are lexically derived reflexives. The participial suffix plays the same role as the infinitival suffix: it checks the features of V and can sometimes realize V’s internal theta-role.

This well-structured and well-written book applies a theoretical framework (TT) to a wide range of different constructions in one particular language (German) in a thorough and systematic way. However, given the changes H had to implement to describe German, it would be interesting to see how TT—which seems to be based mostly on English data—accounts for less-closely related languages: one might suspect that things are not as neat as this theory implies.

References

Reinhart, Tanya, and Tal Siloni. 2005. The lexicon-syntax parameter: Reflexivization and other arity operations, Linguistic Inquiry 36.3.389–436.