I have now discussed stage and individual level predicates, and showed that they cannot be used interchangeably: certain adverbial elements can only combine with a stage level reading, and seem to require the sentence to contain stage level subparts. Because stage and individual level predicates seem to have such different distribution, I am now going to suggest that they may also differ structurally. A suggestion of a similar kind is made by Kratzer (1988), who says that instead of being properties of different types of entities, stage and individual level predicates differ in argument structure: stage level predicates have an external argument position for spatio-temporal location, individual level predicates have not. This extral external argument is often referred to as the Davidsonian argument. Kratzer (1988) suggests that the subjects of all stage level predicates are base generated within the maximal projection of the predicate (in Specifier of VP), whereas the subjects of individual level predica tes can be base generated either inside or outside the maximal projection of the predicate (either in Specifier of VP or in Specifier of IP).
Although I agree with Kratzer (1988) in that stage/individual level predicates can have different syntactic structures, my starting point is rather different from hers. In my opinion, if the adverbial 'with a limp' cannot be removed from the individual l evel reading of 'walk with a limp' without changing the essential qualities of the individual named Sirkku, then it should be analysed differently from the adverbial 'with a limp' in the stage level reading, which can be removed quite freely. In the stage level readings, the adverbial might be an ordinary adverbial modifier, perhaps a sister to a nonminimal verbal head. In the individual level readings, however, the adverbial seems to somehow form an integral part of the action described by the verb, and one should somehow be able to show that the verbal and the adverbial meaning are unified, and inseparable.