Constraining expletives in English

Abstract

This paper aims to present a theory of expletives1 in English within LFG in which the distribution of expletives follows from general principles and from the lexical entries of the relevant expletives. Consequently, expletives are not subcategorized for, i.e. verbs do not lexically specify whether they take an expletive or what expletive they take, unlike what is assumed in current LFG approaches to expletives. In addition, there are no alternative lexical entries for verbs depending on whether they cooccur with an expletive or not. The proposed analysis diverges from standard mapping theories in the assumption that argument-to-function linking takes place in the syntax, instead of in the lexicon. The current analysis assumes that there are two kinds of expletives: non-thematic expletives, which do not fill an argument position and are licensed by satisfying the Subject Condition, and argumental expletives, which do fill an argument position, but make no semantic contribution.