Exploring the future of research in project management

Abstract

This paper challenges what it calls the SEMANTIC DETERMINIST HYPOTHESIS (SDH) of argument licensing, according to which the syntactic realisation of a verb’s arguments is a function of its semantic properties. Specifically, it takes issue with ‘event schema’ versions of the SDH applied to the English ditransitive alternation (give/send fJesse the gun/the gun to Jesseg), which claim a systematic, syntactically predictive distinction between ‘caused possession’ and ‘caused motion’. It is first shown that semantic and syntactic irregularities among the alternating verbs disconfirm such a mapping. More crucially, however, it is argued that ‘non-prototypical’ (metaphorical and idiomatic) usage(The news report gave Walt an idea, Walt’s actions gave the lie to his promises, The discovery sent Jesse into a fury) is fatal to the SDH, since the hypothesis entails the existence of SEMANTIC CONSTRAINTS on argument realisation which these expressions violate.