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Book: Implicit Subject and Direct Object Arguments in Hungarian Language Use

Chapter: Explanations of the Occurrence of Verbs with Implicit Arguments

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.32448

Blurb:

In Chapter 2, I will briefly overview the previous types of explanations of occurrences of verbs with lexically unrealised arguments in various languages and different frameworks. Firstly, I will criticise purely syntactic (Section 2.1), pragmatic (Section 2.2) and lexical-semantic (Section 2.3) explanations. Secondly, I will discuss the current treatments (Section 2.4) which apply more complex approaches, taking into consideration different factors in the licensing and interpretation of lexically unrealised arguments. What these complex frameworks have in common is that they integrate grammatical and pragmatic constraints in their explanation, but they differ in their latent background assumptions and theory formation. In Chapter 2, I will not aim to provide a full review of the relevant literature; instead, I will attempt to characterise some typical treatments in order to make it manifest why purely syntactic, pragmatic or lexical-semantic explanations cannot adequately account for the behaviour of verbs with implicit arguments, and demonstrate how current approaches argue for the necessity of a complex framework. By such a presentation of the selected literature, I aim to prepare my own approach, which I will start to introduce in Chapter 3.

Chapter Contributors

  • Enikő Németh T (nemethen@hung.u-szeged.hu - enemeth) 'University of Szeged'