An advantage of aspectual event classifications based on participant roles, such as the one in (77), repeated here as (94), is that they are explicitly linked to syntactic verb classifications of the kind sketched in Section 1.2.2. Van Voorst (1988), for example, claims that originators and delimiters typically correspond to external agent/cause and internal theme arguments, respectively. Such linking is a priori desirable because form and meaning are usually seen as two sides of the same coin.

The requirement that the syntactic and semantic classifications should be linkable may also prevent these classifications from diverging too much, and can therefore be used to evaluate individual proposals. For instance, the examples in (95) suggest that the traditional distinction between monadic (intransitive) and dyadic (transitive) verbs is incompatible with the aspectual event classification in (94) because it fails to provide a natural account of the fact that lachento laugh denotes an activity, while overlijdento die denotes an achievement.

The alternative syntactic classification developed in Section 1.2.2, sub II, fares better in this respect, since it distinguishes two types of monadic verbs. The contrast between the two examples in (95) follows from Van Voorst’s (1988) claim that external arguments of intransitive verbs such as lachento laugh typically function as originators, while internal theme arguments of unaccusative verbs such as overlijdento die typically function as delimiters. This clearly favors the alternative classification in Table 3 from Section 1.2.2, sub III, repeated here as Table 6, over the traditional one.

	name	external argument	internal argument(s)
no internal argument	intransitive	nominative (agent)	—
	impersonal	—	—
one internal argument	transitive	nominative (agent)	accusative (theme)
	unaccusative	—	nominative (theme)
two internal arguments	ditransitive	nominative (agent)	dative (goal) accusative (theme)
	nom-dat verb	—	dative (experiencer) nominative (theme)
	undative verb	—	nominative (goal) accusative (theme)

Dyadic verbs can also denote states, activities, achievements or accomplishments. The traditional classification with an undifferentiated set of dyadic verbs provides no means to describe these differences, while according to the alternative classification in Table 6 at least the verb hebben differs from all other verbs in (96) in that it is an undative verb and thus has no agentive argument. If it turns out that undative verbs typically denote states, this can again be seen as an argument for the alternative classification.

Of course, it may be the case that the semantic and syntactic classifications do not reflect each other in all respects. For instance, the semantic distinctions between the examples in (96b-d) are not reflected by either the traditional or the alternative syntactic classification, and thus may be due to additional restrictions imposed by the verbs on their arguments in the way indicated in Table (97): although originators and delimiters may typically correspond to external agentive and internal theme arguments, respectively, it may be the case that external and internal arguments do not necessarily function as originators and delimiters; see also the linking rules in Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995: §4.1).

	external argument = originator	internal argument = delimiter
dragen ‘to carry’	+	—
ontdekken ‘to discover’	—	+
verbergen ‘to hide’	+	+

The discussion of the examples in (96) suggests that the distinction between (96a) and (96b-d) is syntactic, whereas the distinctions between the examples in (96b-d) may be purely semantic. This may also explain the sharp contrast between the attributive (a)-examples in (98) and the remaining examples.

Subsection I has shown that the traditional syntactic classification based on the adicity of verbs cannot be easily linked to the aspectual event classifications of the type in (94); the alternative proposal in Table 6, based both on the number of arguments and on the distinction between internal and external arguments, fares much better in this respect. This subsection will show that, on the assumption that (depending on the semantic properties of the verb) external arguments are optionally interpreted as originators and internal theme arguments are optionally interpreted as delimiters, it is indeed possible to relate the syntactic classification in Table 6 to the aspectual event classification in (94). Since goal arguments, but not experiencer arguments, can function as a “new location” of a theme, we will also briefly consider whether the second internal argument can be interpreted as a terminus (i.e. point of termination) in the sense of Tenny (1994); cf. the discussion of example (82) in Section 1.2.3, sub II.

In order to maximize contrasts and highlight a number of potential problems, we will group the verbs according to their adicity. We will not discuss impersonal verbs like regenento rain and vriezento freeze, as we have little to say about them in this context. Note also that the discussion below is occasionally somewhat tentative in nature; it presents an ongoing research program rather than a set of established facts/insights. The discussion below will make clear that there are still a number of questions requiring further investigation.