Search results for " prototypical intransitives"

Unaccusativity

2012

Abstract My research is an attempt at suggesting a cross-linguistically valid definition of verbs characterized by unagentivity and affectedness such as “burn”, “die”, “sink”, “fall”, “slide”, etc., which according to the present analysis constitute the semantic core of unaccusativity. Both synchronic and diachronic approaches are followed. Various definitions have been attributed to these verbs (eventives, anticausatives, transformatives, inchoatives, decausatives). Although Perlmutter & Postal (1984) classify unaccusative verbs on the basis of their syntactic behavior, they also argue that the syntactic expression of arguments is always determinable on the basis of the meaning of the verb…