The Argument Structure of Deverbal Nouns in Germanic and Romance: An LMT Account

This paper addresses the question of how semantic participants of event-denoting, argument-taking deverbal nouns are linked to syntactic positions. It postulates that the semantic structure and the argument structure of verbs and of event-denoting nouns derived by affixation can be identical for many verb-noun pairs. It is shown that the contrasts in the way the semantic participants of the event denoted are linked to syntactic positions which have been observed for verbs and nouns can be explained if one assumes that the rules mediating between argument structure and syntactic argument positions differ slightly for verbs and nouns. The linking rules are represented in the framework of Lexical Mapping Theory (LMT).

To apear in: Meinschaefer, Judith. The syntax and argument structure of deverbal nouns from the point of view of a theory of argument linking. In: Dal, G.; Miller, P.; Tovena, L.; Van de Velde, D. (eds.): Deverbal nouns. Amsterdam: Benjamins.