Abstract

Particles in Gennan have the capacity to introduce new arguments when they combine with a verb. Based on this observation, I argue that the intemal arguments of a particle verb are always introduced by the particle. I suggest that this follows from the fact that syntactically, the particle is the head of a maximal projection that occupies the single complement position of the verb; therefore, none of the base verb 's arguments can be linked to a syntactic object position if a particle is present. In providing empirical evidence for my claim, I discuss in some detail the derivation of a variety of particle verbs, representing their semantics as Lexical Conceptual Structures, according to the framework developed in Jackendoff ( 1983, 1990).