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영어

This article is concerned with the so-called Direct Object Restriction (DOR) on English resultatives. The DOR claims that the resultative phrase must be predicated of the direct object. Although it explains why resultative formation is possible with unaccusatives as well as transitives, but not with unergatives, it seems to face difficulties accounting for a subtype of resultatives, leading Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2001) to conclude that the DOR is incorrect. Contra Rappaport Hovav and Levin, I have shown that the DOR is still valid as a descriptive generalization, especially with respect to canonical English resultatives. In addition, I have argued that the DOR can be subsumed under the following revised version of the theme condition originally proposed by Wechsler (1997). (i) The Compatibility Condition on Thematic DischargeA resultative phrase must discharge its thematic feature onto an argument and it can do so iff it is compatible with the proto-role features of the latter. I have also shown that some problematic data for the theme condition can be explained away by the revised version.