Implicit arguments – participants in an event or relation that are not overtly realized but are nonetheless interpreted and syntactically active – pose persistent challenges for theories of argument structure, linking, and the syntax-semantics interface. Canonical examples include, among others, the unexpressed external argument of passives (The ship was sunk), null internal arguments of certain transitive verbs (Tom already ate), and unsaturated thematic roles in deverbal nominals and adjectives (the destruction, Jane is proud). Such cases raise important questions about how arguments are licensed, represented, and interpreted in the absence of phonological realization, in general, as well as about how implicit arguments, in particular, relate to other covert categories such as PRO, pro, movement traces/copies and ellipsis sites.

Theoretical approaches to implicit arguments diverge widely. While some consider them to be unsaturated thematic roles (Williams 1985, Grimshaw 1990) or existentially closed in the lexical semantics of the predicate without being represented in the syntax (Partee 1989, Lasersohn 1997), more recent research has shown that implicit arguments crucially participate in grammatical dependencies (Williams 2015, Bhatt & Pancheva 2017, Collins 2024). Some of this work emphasizes the role of functional structure, proposing that implicit arguments – for instance, implicit external arguments of passives – are introduced by heads such as Voice rather than by the verb itself (Kratzer 1996; Legate 2014; Alexiadou, Anagnostopoulou & Schäfer 2015; Collins 2024).

A further complication is that implicit arguments do not appear to form a uniform class. Their availability and properties vary across predicate types (verbs, adjectives, nouns) and constructions (passives, middles, impersonals, nominalizations), they differ in their interpretive possibilities, including existential, generic, and definite readings (Condoravdi & Gawron 1996; Collins 2024) and may have different behavior across languages (Rizzi 1986). These differences raise the question of whether “implicit argument” names a single grammatical phenomenon or a family of related ones (Bhatt & Pancheva 2017; Landau 2010) and how they should be accounted for.

This workshop aims to bring together work from syntax, semantics, and their interface to reassess the status of implicit arguments among covert categories in grammar. By focusing on their distribution, grammatical activity/representation, interpretation, and formal analysis, the workshop aims to clarify what implicit arguments reveal about argument structure, the division of labor between syntax and semantics, and the architecture of grammar in general.

We invite contributions that address the following research questions and possibly further related topics. 

1. Where do implicit arguments appear?

Which (sub)classes of predicates (verbs, adjectives, nouns) and which constructions (e.g. passives, impersonals, middles, nominalizations) license implicit arguments? How construction-specific or predicate-specific is their availability?

2. How many types of implicit arguments are there?

Should we distinguish different types of implicit arguments, such as implicit external arguments of passives, null internal arguments of verbs, or implicit arguments in nominals and adjectives? How do these types correlate with differences in interpretation (existential, definite, generic) and with other covert categories in the grammar?

3. What are the syntactic and semantic properties of implicit arguments?

What diagnostics distinguish implicit arguments from other covert elements such as pro, PRO, or movement traces/copies? Are implicit arguments syntactically represented, or are they only semantically active? Bhatt & Pancheva (2017) argue that they are syntactically active but it is not clear whether they are also syntactically represented. How can we test their syntactic representation? How do tests involving control, anaphora, modification or discourse reference bear on this question?

4. How should implicit arguments be analyzed?

How should implicit arguments be modeled formally in syntax and semantics? How are they licensed and how are they interpreted? Can they be treated as pro or PRO, ellipsis, as part of lexical argument structure, or as introduced by functional heads? What are the consequences of different analyses for theories of argument structure and the syntax-semantics interface?

Maia Duguine (CNRS-IKER)

Monica-Alexandrina Irimia (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)

Florian Schäfer (Humboldt University, Berlin)

Deadline for abstract submission: May 1, 2026

Notification of acceptance: June 15, 2026

Program available: June 30, 2026

Registration from: June 30, 2026

Workshop dates: September 28-29, 2026

Zi Huang (U. Graz)

Gianina Iordăchioaia (U. Graz)

For anything related to the workshop, contact us at imparg.graz@gmail.com .