Talk:Unaccusative verb
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contents |
[edit] The title
I have just moved the text below from Talk:Ergative verb, which is now a redirect to this page. In part, it justifies my decission to make the redirect, but it is also very informative. --Pablo D. Flores 11:50, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
<BEGIN MOVED TEXT>
- Some linguists would definitely take issue with the definition of "ergative verb" given in the article of that title (henceforth refered to as That Article.) Here's why. In morphosyntax, the term "ergative" can be used for the A argument (in the A/S/P schema explained in the article "Morphosyntactic Alignment.") And in semantics, the term "ergative" is best used, if at all, for an actor performing some act (usually on purpose) that affects something else. But neither of these uses is well illustrated in the five sentences which That Article gives as examples of so-called ergative verbs:
- "I think.
- I see.
- I understand.
- I experience.
- The door opens.
- I ate."
- All these verbs can be used transitively, so there seems no point in saying (as That Article says) that the first four are "ergative-only" and the last two "ergtative or transitive." More importantly, the verbs have differing semantic and syntactic characters. When the verb "open" switches from transitive to intransitive use, underlying P is recast as S and underlying A is lost: transitive "Someone(A) opened the door(P)" becomes intransitive "The door(S) opened." But with the other five verbs, underlying A is recast as S and underyling P is lost: transitive "John(A) thought/saw/understood/experienced/ate it(P)" becomes intransitive "John(S) thought/saw/understood/experienced/ate." This is a major difference, and the term "ergative verb" doesn't do justice to it.
- Is there a better term?
- In languages where the P role is granted its own special case, that case is called accusative, so some linguists say that verbs like "open" (which can recast P as S) are _unaccusative_ when used intransitively. (Other examples of unaccusative verbs: "Plates break easily," "The weight will drop quickly." If these statements were turned into transitives, the S's would be put into the P slot and some A would have to be named. Alternately, unaccusative verbs can usually be reformed as passives: "is opened," "is broken," "is dropped.")
- If "open" is an unaccusative verb when used intransitively, what about intransitive "think, see, understand, experience, eat," and other verbs like them? As mentioned, these verbs delete underlying P and recast underlying A as S when they become intransitive. In languages where the A role has its own special case, that case is called ergative; so it has been suggested that these verbs be called "unergative." The term does them more justice on all counts than "ergative" does.
- --B.A.M.
- Sources on ergativity theory: see R. M. W. Dixon, _Ergativity_. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
-
- Should have seen this while ago. I've just (inadvertently) created unaccusative verb and unergative verb. This article should be merged with the former, and the whole ergative verb and also intransitive verb should de-emphasize English usage (see Countering Systemic Bias).--Pablo D. Flores 22:13, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
<END MOVED TEXT>
[edit] Merge with Unergative Verb
PS: My comment still holds. --Pablo D. Flores 11:50, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
- Yeah, I think this article should be merged with Unergative verb. They're both short, and since they are mutually exclusive types of intransitive verbs, they can be treated together quite nicely. I think I'll add the merge template. Torgo 20:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Middle voice?
Isn't these verbs the lexical counterparts of the middle voice forms of average verbs? They very much seem to function like those, don't they? Adam78 19:36, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Passivization example is cheating.
It's cheating to say that "Unaccusative verbs cannot be passivized, due to the fact that their subject is not a semantic agent" and give English examples of the ungrammatical constructions that would supposedly result, because in English, no intransitive verb can be passivized. Some languages, like German and Dutch, do allow intransitive verbs to be passivized, but the example "*I am coughed" is a bad one even then, because the passive form of an intransitive verb is an impersonal verb (see Impersonal passive voice). And is it necessarily the case that such languages forbid the passivization of unaccusative verbs? Ruakh 19:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Unexplained, unglossed addition
The following was recently added to the article:
- Japanese: [using Kunrei-style romanisation]
- 太郎が窓を閉めた。Taroo-ga mado-o simeta. "Taro closed the window."
- 窓が閉まった。Mado-ga simatta. "The window closed."
Since it's not explained or glossed in any way, and in particular no reason is given to think that "simatta" isn't simply "simeta"'s passive-voice counterpart, I've removing it until someone can explain it — confirm that it's appropriate to this article, and add gloss and whatnot so that a reader can benefit from its inclusion.
