argument (n.) (A, arg)

A term used in PREDICATE calculus, and often found in the discussion of SEMANTIC theory, to refer to the relationship of a name or other term to the PREDICATE with which it combines to form a simple PROPOSITION. For example, in the proposition, the boy is naughty, the boy is an ‘argument’ of the proposition. In CASE GRAMMAR, each underlying proposition is analyzed in terms of a predicate word and an unordered set of argument slots, each of which is labelled according to its semantic (‘case’) relationship with the predicate word. In later GENERATIVE GRAMMAR, the term is used to refer to any NOUN PHRASE POSITION within a SENTENCE (i.e. functioning as SUBJECT, OBJECT, etc.). In GOVERNMENT-BINDING THEORY, an argument is an expression with a THETA ROLE, and the position to which a theta role can be assigned is called an A (rgument)-position. An internal argument is an argument of the verb that does not include the subject; an external argument is an argument of the verb that does include the subject. External arguments may differ depending on how a sentence is understood: for example, in John broke his leg, John is an AGENT if John and his refer to different people, but it is a PATIENT if his is CO-REFERENTIAL. The preservation of argument structure under morphological operations is termed inheritance (e.g. verb-derived nouns in -ing allow inheritance of all the input verb’s arguments, as in the putting of the ladder against the wall). A preferred argument structure is a demonstrable DISCOURSE preference in a language for the use of a particular syntactic structure – for example, a tendency for lexical NPs to appear as the subject of an intransitive verb rather than of a transitive verb. An argument which is not overtly expressed (as when the AGENT of a PASSIVE sentence is left unstated) is called an implicit argument.