Lexicality and Argument Structure

Argument structure has two faces, semantic and syntactic. On the semantic side, argument structure represents the core participants in events (states, processes) designated by a single predicator. From this point of view it appears as a type of representation of event structure. On the syntactic side, argument structure represents the minimal information needed to characterize the syntactic dependents of an argument-taking head. From this point of view it appears as a type of syntactic subcategorization or valence register. Thus argument structure is an interface between the semantics and syntax of predicators (which we may take to be verbs in the general case). Its function is to link lexical semantics to syntactic structures.