Uniformity of Theta-Assignment Hypothesis
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Definition
The Uniformity of Theta-Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH), proposed in Baker (1988), states that identical thematic relationships between items are represented by identical structural relationships between these items at the level of D-structure.
Example
Assuming that Mary in (ia) is in the same thematic relationship with give as in (ib), Baker proposes that the D-structure of (ia) is identical to that of (ib) and that the S-structure of (ia) is derived as in (ii) (by invisibly incorporating to in the verb and moving Mary to the left of a book).
(i) a. John gave Mary a book b. John gave a book to Mary (ii) John gave+toi Maryj a book ti tj
The UTAH has given rise to analyses in cases where the assumption of a D-structural identity is far from obvious, e.g. the pair in (iii). Cf. Hale and Keyser (2002).
(iii) a. John saddled the horse b. John put a saddle on the horse
Links
References
- Baker, Mark C. 1988. Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press.
- Baker, Mark C. 1997. Thematic roles and syntactic structure., Haegeman, L. (ed.), Elements of Grammar., 73-137, Kluwer Academic Publishers
- Hale, K. and S.J. Keyser 2002. Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
| CAT | This article needs proper categorization. You can help Glottopedia by categorizing it Please do not remove this block until the problem is fixed. |
