Marjolein Talsma (University of Groningen)

A Split-Merge approach to argument structure

In this talk, I discuss a novel way of associating arguments with their predicate, based on the concept of Split-Merge (Zwart 2009). Where traditional Merge is binary and combines two elements into one, Zwart’s Split-Merge is unary and only targets one element at a time. The main view presented here is that argument structure must be seen as a dependency relation between predicates and arguments, where the predicate is dependent on the argument. This dependency relation is formed by (Split-)Merge.

I will discuss the consequences of adopting this approach, including the implications for A-movement, UTAH, the VP-internal subject hypothesis, the difference between unergatives and unaccusatives and the LCA.

Zwart, Jan-Wouter. 2009. Prospects for top-down derivation. Catalan Journal of linguistics 8. 161–187.