An active sentence entails its passive counterpart, and vice versa. Thus, the two sentences John likes Joan and Joan is liked by John mutually entail each other. My question in this regard concerns the extent to which predicate-argument analyses of such sentences should be similar or the same. For instance, is it correct to posit that the two sentences just produced allow the same one predicate-argument analysis, something like (1)?
(1) like (John, Joan)
Or perhaps the analyses should be similar but not the same. They might assume the same arguments but allow for a more surface-oriented understanding of predicates, e.g.
(2) a. likes (John, Joan) (2) b. is liked by (John, Joan) or (Joan, John)
Consider this same issue with respect to light verb constructions, e.g. John hugged Joan vs. John gave Joan a hug. These two sentences are arguably almost synonymous; they seem to mutually entail each other. Should they therefore receive the same or similar predicate-argument analyses, something like (3)?
(3) hug (John, Joan)
Or, again, assuming the same arguments but allowing for a more surface-oriented understanding of predicates, something like (4a-b):
(4) a. hug (John, Joan) (4) b. give a hug (John, Joan)
In short, then, my question is looking for guidance concerning the (potential) connection between entailment and predicate-argument analyses. All comments welcome, including suggestions pointing to the relevant literature.
