The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

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b. hakašat ha-yeled *(al-yedey ha-naxaš) zi’aze’a otanu
biting the-boy (by the-snake) shocked us
“The biting of the boy (by the snake) shocked us.”
(Siloni 1997, (41))
.
The Agent of the le N is never realized, namely it is always implicit. I will assume
then, that it undergoes obligatorily Sat ARB . Put differently, it seems to be the case that
the removal of Genitive by le- designates the Agent, whose projection in a regular e-N
is optional, as ΘSat ARB , namely, as a theta-role that has to undergo obligatory
Arbitrarization. 23 The complete lexical operation that derives the le N is given in (37):
(37) Lexical externalization in Hebrew (final)
[Ppred-affix]le + [N] e-N Genitive Case [N] le N
e, Θ Agent , Θ Theme e, ΘSat Arb , Ext Th
It is important to note that externalization has no effect on the e variable of the
leN. This is significant, as the existence of e will be argued in section 5.5 to be crucial
for the interpretation of the object gap constructions. 24
Let us now summarize the direct and indirect consequences of (37).
The removal of Genitive by le- is directly responsible for the non-realization of
the Agent and Theme arguments of the le N NP-internally; the Agent is ΘSat Arb and
therefore not projected, the Theme is externalized, Ext.
The ungrammaticality of the by-phrase and possessor phrase in the le NP (see
section 5.2.4) is an indirect consequence of (37). More specifically, it seems to be the
case that these phrases in nominals are not licensed because of ΘSat ARB . I propose to
construe this as follows. The by-phrase and possessor phrase are licensed upon simple
saturation of the Agent (Θ Sat ). le-N cannot feed simple saturation as its Agent is
23 See Marelj (2002, forthcoming) for another instance of obligatory Arbitrarization (i.e. in the lexically
formed middle verbs in English or Dutch).
24 Grimshaw’s (1990) view that the e-argument is the external argument of an e-N, combined with the
assumption that an internal argument can be externalized only if an external one is absent (Williams
1994), is arguably problematic for the proposed externalization of the Theme argument. Note, however,
that the e argument of e-Ns is not a syntactic argument (i.e. it is not assigned to a syntactic position, but
bound by D DP-internally, see 5.2.2). Therefore, it is plausible that the externalization of the Theme
argument has no interaction with the e argument of the nominal.