The Role of Topicality in Subject Selection

Abstract

The problem of subject selection is one of the frequently discussed topics concerning the lexical semantics-syntax interface. In the present article we have critically reviewed three representative approaches: the thematic hierarchy approach, Randall`s (2010) lexical decomposition approach, and Dowty`s proto-role approach. Dowty`s (1991) analysis seems to have greater explanatory power than the other two, but it is far from satisfactory in that it cannot account for subject selection in sentences containing symmetrical predicates or location subject predicates. Building upon the observations by Levin and Rappaport Hovav (2005), Wunderlich (2006), and Dowty (2000), we have claimed that topicality of an argument plays a crucial role in subject selection when the two coarguments have (almost) the same number of proto-role entailments and that the semantic idiosyncrasies of the location subject sentence are attributable to the topical nature of its subject, not to the polysemous nature of the predicate, as Dowty (2000) claims.