This series publishes original contributions which describe and theoretically analyze structures of natural languages. The main focus is on principles and rules of grammatical and lexical knowledge both with respect to individual languages and from a comparative perspective. The volumes cover all levels of linguistic analysis, especially phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, including aspects of language acquisition, language use, language change, and phonetical and neuronal realization.

This study inquires how selection restrictions operative on verbs with predicative complements can be derived in the framework of a two-stage meaning analysis. The center of interest focusses on verbs of position and their PP complements, but in the second part of the study the purview is extended to include resultative constructions. In order to explain the variant behavior of intransitive verbs in resultative constructions, a conceptually motivated distinction is made between two types of semantic predicate, allowing a differentiation between non-ergative and non-accusative verbs. On the basis of this distinction general restrictions on the composition of semantic structures can be formulated from which (among other things) observations are derivable about thematic restrictions limiting argument positioning.

Unlike other diatheses, medium can display different versions. The study proposes a unified analysis for all versions of medium, in which these versions result not from a change in semantic representation but from the interaction of the argument structure with the semantics of the base verb and the event structure. The analysis is developed for medium and applied to reflexive constructions. There is also discussion of the changes undergone by the interpretation of medium in ancient and modern Greek.