Two Types of External Argument Licensing – The Case of Causers*

Abstract

Abstract. This article argues that the thematic licensing of causer arguments is not a strictly lexical property but depends on the event configuration within the verbal phrase. The central observation leading to this conclusion is that three morphosyntactically different types of causer‐DPs are subject to the same licensing condition: they are licit only in the context of a bi‐eventive, resultative event structure. This licensing constellation is not only provided by lexically bi‐eventive verbs, but also by overt syntactic composition of a mono‐eventive verb with a secondary result predicate where the mono‐eventive verb does not license causers on its own. The latter constellation argues against coding causer‐roles in a verb’s lexical entry. Instead, it argues for an account that assumes event decomposition of lexically resultative verbs and some version of a configurational θ‐theory. Concentrating on existing syntactic versions of such an account, it is shown that they need to be updated to cover the set of data presented in this paper. A central claim put forward is the need to dissociate the verbal layers introducing causative‐resultative event structure (which acts as thematic licenser of causers) from those layers introducing external arguments syntactically (formal licensers). Concerning the latter, it is shown that causers, although thematically external arguments, are not necessarily introduced by a Voice projection on top of the verbal predicate.