生成文法とチョムスキー派の言語学の必携シリーズLinguistic Inquiry Monographsから待望の新刊。ミニマリスト・プログラムの主要概念「マージ」に基づく項構造の新たな理論を英語の受動構文の性質の詳細な分析を通して示す。Chris Collins investigates principles of argument structure in minimalist syntax through an in-depth analysis of properties of the English passive construction. He formulates a new theory of argument structure based on the only structure-building operation in minimalist syntax, Merge, which puts together two syntactic objects to form a larger one. This new theory should give rise to detailed cross-linguistic work on the syntactic and semantic properties of implicit arguments.