Lexical Semantics, Syntax, and Event Structure

This book focuses on the linguistic representation of temporality in the verbal domain and its interaction with the syntax and semantics of verbs, arguments, and modifiers. Leading scholars explore the division of labour between syntax, compositional semantics, and lexical semantics in the encoding of event structure, encompassing event participants and the temporal properties associated with events. They examine the interface between event structure and the systemswith which it interacts, including the interface between event structure and the syntactic realization of arguments and modifiers. Deploying a variety of frameworks and theoretical perspectives they consider central issues and questions in the field, among them whether argument-structure is specifiedin the lexical entries of verbs or syntactically constructed so that syntactic position determines thematic status; whether the hierarchical structure evidenced in argument structure find parallels in sign language; should the relation between members of an alternation pair, such as the causative-inchoative alternation, be understood lexically or derivationally; and the role of syntactic category in determining the configuration of argument structure.

Malka Rappaport Hovav teaches in the Department of Linguistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her books include Argument Realization (CUP 2005) and Unaccusativity (MIT Press 1995), written along with Beth Levin. Edit Doron teaches in the Department of Linguistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has written widely on the syntax and semantics of English and Semitic languages. Ivy Sichel teaches in the Department of Linguistics and the Cognitive Science Program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her interests include comparative syntax, the structure of noun phrases, and the syntax-semantics interface.