Unaccusative Verbs Research Articles

Prepositional Verbs and the Individual-/Stage-Level distinction

Drawing on Catalan, we show how the aspectual classification of intransitive prepositional verbs is, partially, a predictor of their argument structure properties. Prepositional verbs qualifying as Stage-Level form a heterogeneous class, comprising both unergative and unaccusative verbs. By contrast, those prepositional verbs that qualify as Individual-Level predicates are homogenous as regards argument structure: their prepositional complement is robustly obligatory and their subject is not an external argument, suggesting that they involve a predicative configuration whose predicate is the prepositional complement. This result supports the more general Property Verbalization Constraint hypothesis (Acedo-Matellán 2019), which states that Individual-Level property predicates cannot be encoded as unergative verbs.

The Relevance of Unaccusativity to Possessive Datives

Abstract The possessive dative construction has been widely adopted as an unaccusativity diagnostic (Borer and Grodzinsky 1986). Gafter (2014) casts doubt on the relevance of unaccusativity to the acceptability of the construction. We ran a series of acceptability judgment experiments to investigate the validity of the possessive dative construction as an unaccusativity diagnostic, controlling for possible confounds such as animacy, definiteness, plausibility, lexical choice, type of possession and context salience. The experiments reveal that possessive datives are significantly more acceptable with unaccusative verbs than with unergatives, including reflexive and emission verbs. We conclude that unaccusatives, but not unergatives, are grammatical in the construction, and defend a structural account of the data.

Factors Causing Overpassivisation of Unaccusative Verbs by Japanese Learners of English

It has been reported that second language (L2) learners of English including Japanese learners of English (JLEs) overpassivise unaccusative verbs although it is a kind of intransitive verbs. In order to account for the phenomenon, several assumptions have been proposed. However, so far, it is unclear which assumption is the most effective for explaining the overpassivisation of unaccusatives. Thus, this study tries to examine which of the three factors, animacy of subjects, existence of conceptualizable agents, or telicity of verbs, the most strongly affects overpassivisation of unaccusative verbs by JLEs. In this study, we conducted two experiments to examine this question. Study 1 was conducted with 100 university JLEs to compare the effect of animacy of subjects with that of the existence of conceptualizable agents. As a result, it was found that the animacy of subjects more strongly affected the overpassivisation of unaccusatives than the existence of conceptualizable agents. We conducted Study 2 with 101 university JLEs to examine which of the two factors, the existence of conceptualizable agents or the degree of telicity, is more influential. The results showed that the former was influential, but the latter was less so on the overpassivisation of unaccusatives. From the results of the two experiments, we concluded that the animacy of subject is the strongest influential factor among the three. On the other hand, the telicity of verbs hardly influences any errors.

Causative alternation in Zuo Tradition

Abstract This study examines the different variants of causative alternation in Zuo Tradition (左傳), an archaic Chinese narrative history from the Pre-Qin period. It is found that denominal verbs, unergative verbs, and “pure” unaccusative verbs participate actively in the alternation, and that the causative variant bears a complex relation with the agentive and putative variants; this causes problems for previous analyses. This paper proposes a two-step build-up of eventuality for causative alternation in archaic Chinese. Specifically, I propose that verbs in archaic Chinese are monadic and select only one argument. The merger of the verb with this argument is the realization of its eventuality conceptualized in the Lexicon; any further merger is determined by the eventuality composed by different light verbs in syntax. The uninitiated light verb is a placeholder with an empty argument. A specific light verb value is determined by the eventuality that is sent to the syntactic structure. Thus, the difference between all variants in causative alternation witnessed in Zuo Tradition lies in the different eventualities which they introduce into the syntactic configuration.

The syntax of two existential unaccusative verbs in Polish

Abstract The paper examines the syntax of two unaccusative verbs in Polish – ubyć. perf/ubywać.imperf ‘to disappear, to decrease’ and przybyć. perf/przybywać.imperf ‘to arrive, to increase’ – with a view to shedding light on the structure of existential unaccusatives. The two above-mentioned verbs appear in two distinct paradigms – the disappearance/motion verb and the existential one – both of which are taken to represent subtypes of existential structure. Existential verbs are treated here as monadic predicates with a single small clause complement, whose internal structure may vary, depending on the predicate. The two existential unaccusatives analysed in the paper may select two different types of small clause complement, which are different from the small clause selected by the existential być ‘to be’. Thus, Polish seems to make use of three different small clause structures in existential clauses. The paper also provides evidence that in Polish, like in English, existential unaccusatives are structurally distinct from change of state unaccusatives, and thus in the two languages there is more than one way to be structurally unaccusative. The account bears on the analysis of the genitive of negation in Polish, especially the issue of its inapplicability to existential unaccusatives versus its presence with the existential być ‘to be’.

Memory of formulaic sequences in L2 retention of chunks featuring inchoative uses of unaccusative verbs

Memory of formulaic sequences in L2 retention of chunks featuring inchoative uses of unaccusative verbs

Overpassivisation in L2 Acquisition: An Examination of L1 Malay ESL Tertiary Students’ Passivisation of Intransitive Verbs in English

Overpassivisation, a phenomenon in which passive morphology is applied to intransitive verbs, is a common feature in the interlanguage of L2 English learners. This study examines overpassivisation among L1 Malay ESL tertiary students concerning the type of intransitive verb and English proficiency level. A total of 499 L1 Malay ESL students in higher educational institutions in Malaysia completed a grammaticality judgment test involving items with unaccusative and unergative verbs. The students have completed at least 10 years of formal English instruction in school and have considerably more exposure to English than ESL learners in a foreign language setting. As predicted, the participants overgeneralised passive morphology to the intransitive verbs, and more so with unaccusative than unergative verbs. Further, students’ competence in rejecting overpassivised forms decreased with learners’ increasing proficiency in English. The findings show that while overpassivisation is committed by the L1 Malay ESL students, unaccusative verbs contribute more to overpassivisation than unergative verbs. It indicates learners’ processing of the different underlying structures of the two classes of verbs. Also, the passive rule is progressively acquired as a reduction of overpassivisation is observed for both verb types with increasing English proficiency. L1 Malay ESL tertiary students in Malaysia at lower English proficiency levels have yet to work out intransitive structures, particularly those involving unaccusative verbs. The findings suggest that receiving L2 input in a high-exposure environment does not necessarily allow learners to bypass the developmental stages in acquiring the passive rule.

The Polysemy of the Verb "wystarczyć"/"wystarczać" [to suffice] in Polish

This paper examines the syntax and semantics of the unaccusative verb wystarczać/wystarczyć ‘to suffice’ in Polish. We argue that this verb is polysemous. Besides its idiosyncratic meaning ‘to suffice’, it may also mean ‘to be enough’ or ‘to have enough’. The three above-mentioned meanings of the verb wystarczać/wystarczyć are associated with three different syntactic structures. The idiosyncratic meaning of this verb is found with the nominative argument. The second meaning of the verb surfaces in existential clauses with the genitive DP and an optional locative PP. The third - possessive meaning - arises when the verb appears with the dative possessor and the genitive theme.

The production of preverbal and postverbal subjects by Italian heritage children: Timing of acquisition matters

Heritage language (HL) speakers seem to diverge from monolingual speakers in the acquisition of syntax–discourse interface phenomena. However, most of the studies reporting this finding do not make any distinction between different types of syntax–discourse interface structures. Therefore, it is an open question whether these structures are difficult for HL speakers across the board or whether different types of structures are associated with different acquisition outcomes. In this study, we investigate whether the timing of the acquisition of syntax–discourse interface structures among monolingual children affects their acquisition by HL children. We consider the acquisition of the alternation between preverbal and postverbal subjects with unaccusative, unergative and transitive verbs in Italian. This alternation involves the syntax–discourse interface across all verb types. However, mastery of this alternation has a different timing in monolingual acquisition depending on the verb type: it emerges earlier in association with unaccusative verbs than unergative and transitive ones. We elicit narratives in Italian from 42 Italian heritage children living in Germany and ranging in age from 7 to 14 years. We focus on the analysis of preverbal and postverbal subjects, considering the effect of verb type and discourse status of the subject. The children show a good mastery of the alternation between preverbal and postverbal subjects with unaccusative verbs, whereas they exhibit difficulties with the same alternation in association with transitive and unergative verbs. Furthermore, postverbal subjects with transitive verbs are particularly vulnerable to cross-linguistic effects from German. The results of the study suggest a gradient interpretation of heritage speakers’ difficulty with syntax–discourse interface structures, with timing in monolingual acquisition being a relevant factor that modulates the degree of this difficulty. The results are not affected by children’s dominance of exposure to Italian or age.

Learning unaccusativity: Evidence for split intransitivity in child Spanish

We examine four features of unaccusativity in child-directed and child Spanish to determine what cues children might use to distinguish unaccusative and unergative verbs. Two are cross-linguistic lexico-semantic features: Subjects of unaccusatives are patients so we expect more inanimate subjects with unaccusatives; and unaccusatives tend to have an endpoint, hence may occur more frequently with perfective aspect. The other two are language-specific morphosyntactic features: VS order is grammatical with unaccusatives but not unergatives, and many unaccusative verbs allow/require the anticausative se clitic. We find all four features robustly in children's input and that even 1-2-year-olds show discriminate use of them.

Against a low subject analysis of causatives of unergatives

Contrary to the long-standing assumption that the causative alternation is limited to unaccusative verbs, direct causatives of unergatives have recently been attested in a variety of languages (Massam 2009; Legate 2014; Nash 2017, 2021; Tollan 2018; Tollan & Oxford 2018; Kouneli 2021; Myler 2022; Krishnan & Sarma 2023). The question raised by these causatives is how the causee is realized syntactically and semantically. I argue that in Hindi-Urdu, Turkish and Sason Arabic, direct causatives of unergatives are regular transitives in which the causee is merged as an internal argument assigned a patient θ-role. I propose that such structures are built by coercing the normally unergative verb into an unaccusative use in causative environments, reflected in a deagentivized construal of the causee. I show that this analysis is preferable to a competing proposal according to which the subject of the intransitive unergative and the causee of the causativized variant are both merged in SpecvP. Contrary to the long-standing assumption that the causative alternation is limited to unaccusative verbs, direct causatives of unergatives have recently been attested in a variety of languages (Massam 2009; Legate 2014; Nash 2017, 2021; Tollan 2018; Tollan & Oxford 2018; Kouneli 2021; Myler 2022; Krishnan & Sarma 2023). The question raised by these causatives is how the causee is realized syntactically and semantically. I argue that in Hindi-Urdu, Turkish and Sason Arabic, direct causatives of unergatives are regular transitives in which the causee is merged as an internal argument assigned a patientθ-role. I propose that such structures are built by coercing the normally unergative verb into an unaccusative use in causative environments, reflected in a deagentivized construal of the causee. I show that this analysis is preferable to a competing proposal according to which the subject of the intransitive unergative and the causee of the causativized variant are both merged in SpecvP.

The Effects of L1 Transfers on L2 English Intransitive Errors by Japanese Learners

Second language (L2) learners of various native languages frequently overpassivize one type of intransitive verbs, namely, unaccusatives (e.g., disappeared, arrivedn). Previous studies have attempted to address the culprit of this issue without reaching a general consensus on the cause of such errors. This study investigates whether first language (L1) plays a role in L2 English overpassivization errors with intransitive verbs by Japanese-speaking learners. It utilizes the framework of the Unaccusative Trap Hypothesis (UTH, Oshita, 2001) and hypothesizes that learners ungrammatically passivize unaccusative verbs due to L1 lexicon and morphology. It also predicts that learners generate passive errors with unergatives (e.g., cry, smile) in the same manner as passive unaccusatives. The study examined three types of intransitives: English non-alternating/Japanese alternating unaccusatives (e.g., happen in English and okiru/okosu in Japanese); English/Japanese non-alternating unaccusatives (e.g., arrive in English and tuku in Japanese); unergatives. The study analyzed a Japanese learners’ corpus (JEFLL Corpus), consisting of approximately 70,000 words from Japanese junior high and high school students. The findings in this study are that Japanese EFL learners tend to passivize more English non-alternating/Japanese alternating unaccusatives and unergatives than English/Japanese non-alternating unaccusatives. Given the result, it can be suggested that Japanese learners passivize unaccusatives owing to the influence of their L1 lexicon and morphology.

The Morpho-Syntactic Properties of Anaphors in Kisukuma

This paper focuses on the morphological and syntactic properties of anaphors in Kisukuma, a Bantu language spoken mainly in Shinyanga, Mwanza, Simiyu and Geita regions in the south eastern part of Lake Victoria by the people who call themselves βasukuma. The study was guided by three modules of Government and Binding Theory namely: Binding Theory, Government Theory and Case Theory. Qualitative research approach was employed. Data were collected through sentence questionnaires and grammaticality judgments. Four respondents who are native speakers of Kimunakiiya dialect were selected from Isoso and Ndoleleji villages by using snowball sampling basing on their age and language proficiency. The study found that anaphors in Kisukuma exist in two forms: Verbal anaphors and Nominal anaphors. Anaphors in verbal form are expressed by a single form (morph-i-) that plays one role at a time. Intrinsically the form seems to be polysemic in nature, because in addition to encoding reflexive and reciprocal events, the form is also used to encode other interpretations such as anticausative, decomitative, derogatory, chained action, asymmetric reciprocal, pretense and lack of reason. Hence the form evokes some sort of ambiguities which are solved by the number of participants, the intrinsic characteristics of a verb used and the social context which help to determine the intended meaning. Anaphors in nominal form are expressed by distinct linguistic expressions such as iyene/ng’wenekele/bhenekele ‘myself/themselves’ for reflexive and bhoyigubhoyi/iseguise ‘each other/one another’ for reciprocal interpretation. Morphologically the morph-i- is realized as a prefix attached between the TAM and verb root by the affixation process. Overtly the morph does not show agreement with its antecedent in terms of person, gender and number though covertly it acquires all the features from the overt NP via SM. Syntactically the RFM/RCM is an internal argument of the verb to which it attaches. Also, the form is a valence-reducing element that derives a transitive verb into an intransitive one, (unaccusative verb). Moreover; anaphors in Kisukuma co-refers with the whole NP via the SM to establish binding relation.

The Method of Causative-to-Unaccusative Entailment for Identifying English Ergative Verbs Based on the Criteria

Extensive research has been conducted on ergative verbs both domestically and internationally. However, there is still ongoing debate concerning the classification and criteria for ergative verbs. This paper subscribes to the notion that unergative verbs are a subset of unaccusative verbs, and aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on their classification and criteria. Additionally, this paper discusses the method of causative-to-unaccusative entailment for identifying ergative verbs based on these criteria.

Mandarin-learning 19-month-old toddlers' sensitivity to word order cues that differentiate unaccusative and unergative verbs.

Languages employ different means to manifest the unaccusative-unergative distinction. In Mandarin Chinese, unaccusative verbs are allowed in the inversion construction "V-le NP", while unergative verbs are not. This grammaticality contrast brings a presence/absence contrast between the two verb classes in the inversion construction in the input. Using an eye fixation task, we investigated whether Mandarin-learning 19-month-olds were sensitive to this specific input frequency contrast. We found that infants distinguished the grammatical versus ungrammatical uses of the two verb classes in the inversion construction "V-le NP" (Experiment 1). When the verb classes were in the "NP V-le" order (Experiment 2) (i.e., the same level of grammaticality), infants showed no evidence of a looking difference. These responses indicate toddlers' sensitivity to the distribution of the two verb classes in the inversion construction. This distributional information is likely to be one of the potential cues that facilitate their acquisition of the unaccusative-unergative distinction.

Lexical Frequency Effects on the Acquisition of Syntactic Properties in Heritage Spanish: A Study on Unaccusative and Unergative Predicates

Abstract This study investigates the acquisition of subject placement in unergative and unaccusative predicates among heritage speakers of Spanish by addressing two constraints ruling the distribution of subject placement (i.e., verb type and focus) as well as by examining whether lexical frequency impacts their acquisition. Sixty-three heritage speakers and twenty-five Spanish-dominant bilinguals completed an oral elicited production task and an acceptability judgment task. Results show that verb type constraints in the heritage speakers are shaped by their proficiency and self-reported lexical frequency: more proficient heritage speakers rated VS sentences higher than their lower-proficient counterparts, and more instances of VS sentences were produced with more frequent unaccusative verbs. Focus constraints only impact the heritage speakers’ acceptability: in narrow focus contexts, heritage speakers rate SV higher than VS sentences. Lexical frequency effects in unaccusative predicates are argued to be the result of spell-outs favoring compatible linear orders as a way to reduce computational costs.

Tracking subject position change in U.S. Southwest Spanish: what 19th and 20th century Tucson newspapers tell us

AbstractThis study explores convergence in subject position in U.S. Southwest Spanish at the outset of its extensive contact with English. The data analyzed come from two Spanish newspapers published in Tucson, Arizona, in the years following the city’s annexation to the United States through the Gadsden Purchase in 1854:El Fronterizo(1878–1914) andEl Tucsonense(1915–1957). During this period of early language contact, the Hispanic population in Tucson faced a gradual process of anglicization that changed its status from majority in 1880 (63.8%) to minority in 1940 (29.9%). If there were structural convergence between the languages at stake, then there should be an English-driven gradual decrease across time in the postverbal subject use exhibited in the newspapers studied, as heritage varieties of Spanish develop. However, regressions with Rbrul show that, in the period analyzed, the probability of using postverbal subjects was not affected by the passing of time. Moreover, regression analyses show that the linguistic constraints affecting subject position in historical Tucson Spanish are basically the same that condition the variable in contemporary varieties: absence of a postverbal phrase, sentential subjects, presence of a preverbal phrase, unaccusative verbs, animate subjects and heavy subjects. This study also shows that the weakest factor groups in contemporary varieties of Spanish started their declining process at least a century ago.

Word Order variation in L1 and L2 Italian speakers: the role of Focus and the Unaccusativity Hierarchy

This paper investigates the Italian Word Order variation in the position of subjects (S) with respect to finite predicates (V) in two adult populations: L1-Italian speakers and L1-French L2-Italian speakers. We test how discourse focus (Belletti, 2001) and a decomposed approach to Unaccusativity, i.e., Unaccusativity Hierarchy (Sorace, 2000), determine the SV/VS variation in L1 and L2 populations. The results of a forced-choice preference task show that both factors constrain the Italian word order in L1 and L2 Italian speakers: the VS order was preferred in the narrow focus and with Change of Location unaccusative verbs in both populations, although with different proportions. Overall L2 speakers chose the SV order more consistently than L1 speakers but they did so mainly with the less-core unaccusative verbs of the Unaccusativity Hierarchy. We account for these findings suggesting a return to the original version of the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2005), which predicts that interface phenomena, including those at the syntax-lexicon interface, represent a vulnerable domain in L2 acquisition.

Unaccusative verbs in Modern Standard Arabic

PurposeThe purpose of this research was to analyze the unaccusative verb in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) within the framework of MP in order to answer the research question: How does the single argument of an unaccusative verb, that carries the theme theta role and is generated in the object position, receive a nominative case without moving to the [Spec, vP], which is the base subject position?Design/methodology/approachThe analysis in the paper was based on the framework of Minimalist Program (MP) which was proposed by Chomsky (2000). MP concerns economy, simplicity and efficiency in the connection between sound and meaning. Essentially, Chomsky (2000) proposes that faculty of language (FL) contains a computational system that interfaces with external systems, sensorimotor systems and systems of thought. The computational system is based on three operations. The first operation is merge, which combines two syntactic objects to form a new one. It is presented in binary branches that project a hierarchical level. The second operation is agree which establishes syntactic relation for case assignment and agreement. The final operation is move, which composes merge and agree.FindingsThe analysis demonstrated that the sole argument of an accusative verb receives the nominative case in situ. This is due to Locality of Matching in which the agreement holds between the [nom] case on T and NP in internal argument of VP. This is because there is no intervening NP between T and the sole argument in internal argument of VP, which is a base object position.Originality/valueThis research shows that the single argument of the unaccusative verb receives the nominative case in situ. This analysis observes the economic considerations of MP as well as respects the UTAH hypothesis, which rules out the structures where the theme asymmetrically appears as a specifier or a complement.

Nuclear accent placement in broad focus intransitives in native and non-native English: an investigation of syntactic and pragmatic factors

Simple broad focus intransitives in English have been observed to occur with variable nuclear accent (NA) placement on either the subject or verb. This variability can be difficult to acquire in a second language (L2), especially when the speaker’s first language (L1), such as Spanish, has less flexible NA placement. Learners tend to transfer L1 intonational patterns into their L2, but there is still more to understand about the learning trajectory. Furthermore, the factors driving the NA placement alternation in intransitives are not yet fully understood for L1 speakers; there is a debate about whether NA placement is driven by syntactic factors, pragmatic factors, or a combination of the two. The study reported in this paper used an oral production task to elicit broad focus intransitives from both L1 English speakers and L1 Spanish L2 English learners. Verb type and expectedness were crossed in stimuli construction in order to test the effects of both syntactic and pragmatic factors on NA placement for both speaker groups. The results indicate that L1 speakers are most likely to produce NA on the subject of expected unaccusative verbs, and to produce NA on the verb in all other conditions. L2 speakers show a stronger preference for utterance-final NA placement on the verb, which is likely transferred from the preferred pattern of their L1. At the same time, L2 learners of higher proficiency do show evidence of acquiring the target NA placement pattern.