‘Adjunct theta-roles’ and the configurational determination of roles
In this paper, I discuss “quasi-argument” thematic roles (Instrument, Benefactive and certain Locations), and argue on the basis of their reconstruction properties and their dependence on event-related features that we should analyze them as generated in the event-related functional projections for VP, rather than in VP itself. This supports an approach to thematic roles as defined relative to syntactic relations, since I argue that the roles in question are not definable in relation to lexically specified verbal predicates.