The Category P Features, Projections, Interpretation

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suitable for the problem at hand. Given the Theta System, the notion ‘not fully
specified theta-role’ is translated naturally as ‘a theta-role not specified with regard to
one of the features that compose it’. The hypothesis in (16) can be now slightly
reformulated as in (19):
(19) The underspecification hypothesis (reformulated)
The internal theta-role of PP-verbs is underspecified (where ‘underspecified’
means composed of a feature cluster with an unspecified feature value).
A related hypothesis, stated in (20), will be derived as we proceed:
(20) An underspecified internal theta-role is realized as a PP. 10
In what follows I will present the parts of the Theta System (Reinhart 2000)
relevant for the present discussion.
3.2.2 The theta-features (Reinhart 2000)
Reinhart (2000) proposes that theta-relations are coded in the lexicon by two
binary specified (+/-) features (21). The features are legible to the Inference System
and therefore are not erased in the Computational System (CS), but passed on through
the derivation:
(21) The features that compose theta-roles
[m] = mental state involved
[c] = cause change
Given the binary specification, there are eight possible combinations of the two
features introduced in (21). These are summarized in (22):
10 As stated, (20) does not preclude fully specified theta-clusters from being realized as PPs (see
Appendix A for some examples to this effect).