Unaccusativity Marks

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Unaccusativity Marks

• Konrad Szczesniak
• Silesian University
• International Conference on Foreign / Second
  Language Acquisition.
• Szczyrk, Poland 2005

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Unaccusative verbs verbs of change of state (or
location)
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Unaccusative verbs in the causative alternation
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Unaccusative HypothesisPaul BREAK window

• The window breaks
• Paul BREAK window

• Paul breaks the window
• Paul BREAK window

____
Save for the absence of the agent in the first
sentence, these two sentences have the same Deep
Structure representation.
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Causative Analysis of Unaccusative Verbs
Levin and Rappaport (1995) view the transitive
structure as more basic. The intransitive is
derived from the transitive by eliminating the
agent.
Paul breaks the window.
___ breaks the window.
The window breaks.
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Unaccusative meanings are assumed to be
underlyingly causative
agent
DRY FREEZE OPEN MELT THICKEN EMPTY, etc
The unaccusative meaning of these verbs dictates
an underlying argument structure, where there is
a slot for the agent, whether the agent is
realized or not.
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but the causative analysis of unaccusative verbs
faces a problem posed by the following
phenomenon. In Polish, many unaccusative verbs
come in two forms, only one of which participates
in the causative alternation.
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only one of which participates in the causative
alternation
but
Piorun splonal dom. Lightning burn
NON-REFLPAST house
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The following are only some unaccusative verbs in
Polish with double intransitives
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Same thing in Russian
Nika visohla byelyo. Nika dry NON-REFLPAST
underwear.
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Same thing in Slovenian
Adam je utonil Pavla. Adam drown NON-REFLPAST
Paul.
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What does that mean for the causative analysis?
agent
agent
REFL
DRY FREEZE OPEN MELT THICKEN EMPTY, etc
ZAMROZIC SIE STOPIC SIE ZGASIC SIE, etc
A large selection of unaccusative verbs that do
NOT have a slot reserved for agents in their
argument structures.
NON- REFL
agent
--------
ZAMARZNAC STOPNIEC ZGASNAC, etc
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Ergo the causative / transitive pattern CANNOT
be more basic than the inchoative / intransitive
?
at least not for non-reflexive unaccusative verbs
in Slavic languages
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This is where Distributed Morphology comes into
play
v PLO R na v c inf
v PAL R i v c inf
v SCH R v GLUCH R v MARZ R
v SUSZ R v GLUSZ R v MROZ R
It is not unaccusative verbs that are causative
as a whole.
...but groups of vROOTS a vROOT either contains
a CAUSATIVE feature, or it doesnt.
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The theory of Distributed Morphology assumes that
features combined with ROOTS have a say in
morphological processes.
v
CAUSE
v
-y/ivcinf
v
vROOT v SUSZ R v GLUSZ R v MROZ R
...but not
-navcinf
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To sum up
Unaccusative verbs appear both in transitive and
intransitive patterns, transitive being assumed
more basic.
Problem is, some unaccusative verbs fail to
appear in the transitive pattern.
These verbs lack the feature CAUSE.
In Slavic languages the feature CAUSE
influences the choice of the exponent (-na- or
-i/y-) of the verbalizing morpheme.
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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION I am grateful to
Masha Mlynarczyk and Andrej Surla for the
examples of unaccusative verbs in Russian and
Slovenian.