In current syntax, an external argument is assumed to be introduced by a functional projection (XP) different form VP (Bowers 1993, Kratzer 1994, Chomsky 1995, and Collins 1996). The subject introducing XP, in addition, has been argued to be related to the agentivity of the predicates, partly because presence of the external argument crucially depends on the agentivity of the predicates. The immediate quesiton is then if XP is also projected when predicates are unaccusative (i.e., even when not agentive or when there is no external argument). In this paper, I will argue that XP is projected in very language regardless of the agentivity of predicates under the minimalist program (1995). The actual activity of XP, however, can be seen only in some nguages whose spec feature of X is [+multiple], when the predicate is unaccusative. In Korean, accusative case is licensed even when the predicate (verbal noun+light verb) is unaccusative:
(1)
kicha-ka (train-Nom)
tochak-ul (arrival-Acc) haessta (did)
The train arrived.
The fact that accusative case is available in (1) clearly shows that XP is projected and active enough to provide a case checking position for an NP despite of absence of an external argument (details in the paper). Unlike Korean, the equivalents of (1) in Japanese and English are unacceptable. It will be shown that this cross-linguistic variation has a co-relation with another difference among those languages: namely English and Japanese do not allow multiple accusative constructions whereas Korean does. This will lead us to modify Burzio's generalization. Furthermore, some evidence for presence of XP in [-multiple] spec languages (English and Japanese) also will be given (although not active as it is in [+multiple] spec languages).
