On the Need for a More Refined Approach to the Argument-Adjunct Distinction: The Case of Dative Experiencers in Hungarian

The so-called circumstantial PPs (instruments, benefactives, and the like) have traditionally been analyzed in terms of thematic roles, but it is generally recognized that they have a special syntactic status. In this paper, I argue that they can systematically be treated as adjuncts that bear a thematic role. I substantiate this claim through a case study of dative experiencers in Hungarian, which I analyze in terms of an LFG-theoretic application of the Theta System of Reinhart (2000, 2002). I distinguish between thematic arguments, thematic adjuncts, and non-thematic adjuncts; and I argue that this threefold distinction is minimally needed to be able to account for the behavior of the three distinct empirical types of dative experiencers.