argument (linguistics)

A syntactic verb argument, in linguistics, is a phrase that appears in a relationship with the verb in a clause. Typical syntactic arguments are the subject and the direct object, which are usually termed "core arguments".Arguments can be optional or compulsory. The core arguments are compulsory. If a verb has one core argument (the subject), it is intransitive; if it has two, it is transitive. Some verbs (like English give) have three core arguments (the third is an indirect object). The number of compulsory arguments of a verb is called its valency.
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