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This chapter examines Affectee, the third primary argument type after Agent and Theme, and shows how it manifests itself. It considers the alternation between prepositional dative and double-object constructions, and suggests that the dative argument in the first and the indirect object in the second are both products of AffP. The chapter also argues that Affectee is merged later than Theme in the Universal Order of Merge (UOM), and then contrasts Affectee with Goal, a superficially similar but quite distinct secondary argument introduced in the UOM after Ag but before Th. It furthermore discusses benefactive AffPs, marked with the preposition for, and shows that they must be distinguished, in a parallel fashion, from Benefactive, another secondary argument which is also merged between Ag and Th. In addition, the chapter looks at possessors of verbs of possession and experiencers of psychological predicates, and considers how these various arguments are realized in Russian. It concludes with a discussion of scope and how it provides a new source of evidence in support of the UOM.

Chapter 5 (Head- and dependent-marking in Semitic) provides a detailed investigation of marking patterns and marking devices throughout Semitic. It looks at head- and dependent-marking patterns in individual Semitic languages to determine the overall marking type of the language family, which had been described as double-marking by J. Nichols. Features investigated include adpositional phrases, noun phrases, attributive adjectives, relative clauses, and the marking of core relations such as subject, direct object, and indirect object. The chapter further provides a diachronic description of marking patterns in Semitic and a reconstruction of Proto Semitic patterns. It is suggested that Semitic languages primarily exhibit a split-marking system with a tendency towards dependent-marking, contrary to what Nichols proposed.

This chapter contains a detailed survey of the types of constituents that may function in one of the argument positions of a clause: subject, object, indirect object, other third arguments, subject complement, and object complement. The two main types of constituents found in these positions are noun phrases (including nouns and pronouns) and clauses (which are dealt with in detail in Vol. II). Subject constituents are often not expressed. Attention is paid to the conditions determining this situation. In the section on the object, constituents functioning as ‘pseudo-objects’ are discussed as well. The number of types of constituent that may function as subject and object complement is higher, including also adjectives, numerals, determiners and noun phrases in the genitive, dative, and ablative case.

The serialization of object full NPs is relatively free in Modern German. In OHG, the order IO > DO was heavily preferred; the preference weakened only in the ENHG period. The most important factor for the serialization of object full NPs in OHG is ‘animate before inanimate’, which continues to be an important factor up to the present day. The order IO > DO falls out from that, as the accusative (DO case) tends to be assigned to the least agent-like referent. The loosening of the object order in ENHG is a consequence of other factors becoming more important, for instance ‘given before new’. With respect to structure binding facts suggest that the DO c-commands the IO, the animacy factor being responsible for re-ordering to IO > DO.

The verb phrase is headed by a verb, which may be an auxiliary verb with a grammatical function, a copula, or a lexical verb. Lexical verbs are avalent, transitive, intransitive, ergative, or unaccusative. The verb may have from zero to three arguments, and in addition various adjuncts. The verb always precedes its complements in base structure (VO), and complements may belong to any phrasal category. A crucial concept is that of the small clause (SC), consisting of a predicate word (non-finite verb, adjective, preposition) with possible complements, and a DP functioning as a SC subject. With intransitive and possibly with unaccusative verbs, the SC subject is the surface subject; with transitive verbs it is the object. The verbal particle is a special type of intransitive preposition. The indirect object is generated as the specifier of a lower VP. Free adjuncts, whether predicate or adverbial, are right-adjoined to VP.

The standard analyses of the dative generally postulate two similar Dative Movement rules, one of which applies to to-indirect objects and the other to for-indirect objects. This chapter shows how to improve this analysis within the framework of traditional transformational rules. It demonstrates that constraints imposed by the hearer’s perceptual strategy for interpreting sentences play a part in the unacceptability of certain constructions. These constraints are used to account for the remaining anomalies in the dative shift paradigms.

Chapter 5 describes the emergence of benefactive function from the initial state that had emerged after the loss of the indirect object function in English. Old English used to have a dative case whose function was to code indirectly affected argument, whether positively, adversely, or in any other way – features of dative case that are still present in some IE languages. The linear order of constructions with the dative marked argument was mainly Verb- NP (dative) NP (accusative). Once the case marking in English collapsed as a result of phonological changes, the linear order V NP NP came to code benefactive function. The emergence of benefactive function in turn created a new initial state from which a malefactive function coded by the preposition ‘on’ began to emerge.

Scandinavian has a reflexive pronoun and a reflexive possessive for the 3rd person, and a reciprocal pronoun for all persons. Regular binding domains are finite and non-finite clauses, small clauses, and noun phrases with a verbal content and a genitive ‘agent’. There are also less expected binding relations within NPs, possibly involving an invisible binder. Within VP an indirect object may bind a direct object. Even non-c-commanding binders within VP do exist. Non-local binding into small clauses and infinitival clauses is frequent. Some varieties, especially Norwegian, also allow long distance binding, i.e. binding into finite subordinate clauses. At this point, there is a great deal of variation in acceptability, and definite rules are hard to identify.