The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

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(79) harbe yeladim kalim le-iluf
many children easy to-taming
“Many children are easy to tame.”
(i) many children i [easy [to tame x i ]]
(ii) *easy [many children i [to tame x i ]]
.
Given the above, the discrepancy raised by the TC is crystal clear: On the one
hand the tough A is assumed not to have an external semantic argument, but on the
other hand, the subject position in the TC shows the behavior of a thematic position.
In what follows I will propose how the noted discrepancy can be reconciled.
5.5.1.3 Complex predicate formation: It is intuitively clear that the subject in the
TC has the property denoted by the tough A and the le NP/PP, rather than the property
denoted by the tough A alone. In (80), for instance, it is not the case that the book has
the property of being easy, but rather, the property of the book is that ‘reading it is
easy’. 55 More specifically, easy in (80) modifies primarily the reading, and only then
the whole sequence easy to read is predicated of the book. Consequently, some book
can be easy to read, but difficult to understand, to design, to make a movie of (81):
(80) The book is easy to read.
(81) The book is easy to read, but difficult to understand.
Viewed this way, I propose that the internal semantic argument of a tough A,
which in non-TC is assigned to event denoting arguments (CP/DP) (see 5.5.1.1), is
used in the TC for modification of the event denoted by the predicative constituent
( le NP/PP). Note that this is probably what makes the interpretation of the TC and
Middle construction (82) similar (compare with (80)): 56
(82) The book reads *(easily/with difficulty).
55 For an elaborate semantic analysis of the English TC, see Kim (1996).
56 See Marelj (2002, forthcoming) and references cited therein for the semantic and syntactic analyses
of Middle constructions.