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The Unaccusativity Puzzle. Explorations of the Syntax-Lexicon Interface

Article · January 2004

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The Unaccusativity Puzzle: Studies on the syntax-lexicon interface

Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou, Martin Everaert

*
Table of Contents

Introduction
by the editors

2
 Introduction
Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou, Martin Everaert

This volume presents a collection of papers of recent generative research into unaccusativity,
which explore this key phenomenon from different angles. The volume has its origin in a
workshop on Unaccusativity organised by the Research Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS,
Berlin) and the Netherlands Graduate School in Linguistics (LOT) and hosted in Berlin in May
1998. However, the book is independently structured and features a different set of contributors
than did that event.1 In Part I of our introduction we introduce the theoretical background and the
main issues in unaccusativity research. In Part II, we offer a summary of the papers.

Part I: The theoretical background, Issues in the Study of the Unaccusative Hypothesis

1. The phenomenon
Unaccusativity has generally been taken as a starting point in the study of the complex properties
of the specification of verbs and verb classes.2 The Unaccusative Hypothesis, as first formulated
by Perlmutter (1978), and later adopted by Burzio (1981), was a syntactic hypothesis that claimed
that there are two classes of intransitive verbs, unaccusative verbs and unergative verbs, each
associated with a different underlying syntactic configuration.3 In Relational Grammar this was
expressed as a verb taking a final subject originating as an initial direct object (unaccusative), or a
verb taking a final subject that was also an initial subject (unergative). From a Government and
Binding perspective (see Chomsky 1981 and subsequent work), an unergative verb takes a
theta-marked deep-structure subject and no object, whereas an unaccusative verb takes a
deep-structure theta-marked object and no subject (see 1):

(1) a. NP [VP V] unergative John sings

b. [VP V NP ] unaccusative John came

Different classes of verbs have been analysed as being unaccusative or having an

unaccusative alternate. We will discuss some of these here.
Rosen (1981, 1984) and Burzio (1981, 1986) argue that reflexive verbs such as the
Italian verbs in (2) are unaccusative:

(2) a. Giovanni si vergognara

Giovanni himself ashames
‘Giovanni is ashamed’
b. Gianni se è fotografato

1
The paper by Gennaro Chierchia deserves special mention. It has been circulated as a manuscript
(from Cornell University) for many years, and it is very influential. It is published here for the first
time in its original form.
2
Observe that different terms are used for the same phenomenon. We use the notion unaccusativity
as originally introduced by Perlmutter (1978). Burzio (1981, 1986) uses the term ergative verb.
Another term that is sometimes used in the literature as equivalent to what we call unaccusativity is
split intransitivity.
3
Observe that the unaccusative-unergative distinction can only be formulated in a theory which
distinguishes subject and object, either defined phrase-structurally as the grammatical functions which
are the dedicated positions of proto-agent and proto-patient roles. If one doesn't believe in this
dichotomy, there is no reason to believe that the class of (monadic) predicates is distinguished by a
class of unaccusative, unergatives. It could just as well be a tripartite or quadrate distinction.

3
 Gianni himself is photopgraphed
‘Gianni has photographed himself’

In Burzio (1986) ample evidence is provided that the surface structure subjects in (2) are
derived from a deep structure object position:

(3) a. [S e [VP si vergognara Giovanni]

b. [S Giovannii [VP si vergognara ei]

Chierchia, Embick and Reinhart and Siloni (this volume) discuss this type of verb (see also
Steinbach, this volume).
Many transitive verbs allow an intransitive variant whose subject corresponds to the
direct object of the transitive verb (see Partee 1965). This is illustrated in (4,5) with examples
from French and Dutch (cf., o.a.: for Dutch Everaert 1986, Hoekstra 1984; for French Ruwet
1972, Zribi Hertz 1978; for Italian Burzio 1986, Rosen 1981). The inchoative/anticausative
variant (4b, 5b) is generally analysed as unaccusative:

(4) a. Jean brisera le verre

Jean will break the glass
b. Le verre se brisera
The glass itself will break
‘The glass will break’
(5) a. Hij verspreidde het gerucht
‘He spread the rumour’
b. Het gerucht verspreidde zich
The rumour spread itself
‘The rumour spread’

As (4,5) illustrate, in many languages (see the papers of Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou,
Embick and Steinbach in this volume) a reflexive clitic is added to the unaccusative variant
of the verb. This is, however, not necessarily the case, as is discussed for French (cf. 6) in
Ruwet (1972), for Dutch in Everaert (1986) and for German by Haider (1985):

(6) a. L’ennemi a coulé le bateau

The enemy has sunk the boat
b. Le bateau a coulé
The boat has sunk

Another class of verbs that is frequently investigated in the unaccusativity literature are
motion verbs, in (7-8) illustrated with Dutch examples. Such verbs are unergative verbs (cf.
7) which, when accompanied by a directional prepositional phrase (8), show all the
characteristics of unaccusative verbs, such as the choice of auxiliary BE (7b vs 8b), and the
lack of impersonal passives (7c vs 8c) (cf. Hoekstra and Mulder 1990, Rappaport-Hovav and
Levin 2000, Narasimhan, Di-Tomaso and Verspoor 1996, a.o.):

(7) a. Hij loop

‘He walks’
b. Hij heeft/*is gelopen
c. Er wordt gelopen
(8) a. Hij loop naar huis
4
 ‘He walks home’
b. Hij is/*heeft naar huis gelopen
c. ?*Er wordt naar huis gelopen

This type of verb figures prominently in the papers in this volume of Randal et al., Van Hout
and Veenstra.
Although the unaccusative-unergative dichotomy was introduced and discussed for one
place verbs, the unaccusative class does not only contain such verbs. Two place verbs such as
experiencer verbs of the piacere class, taking a theme and an experiencer argument, (see 9,
for Italian and Dutch, respectively) and two place verbs taking a theme and a goal/source
argument (see 10, for English and Dutch, respectively) have also been argued to involve
derived subjects thus qualifying as two-place unaccusatives. (see Baker 1991, den Besten
1982, Belletti and Rizzi 1988, Everaert 1990, Fanselow 1992, Grewendorf 1989, among
many others).

(9) a. Questo piace a Gianni

This appeals to John
b. Dat boek bevalt mij
That book pleases me
(10) a. The ring passed to Mary
b. De teugels ontglipten hem
The reigns slipped him
‘ The reigns slipped from his hands’

A second class of object experiencer verbs, ofted called the preocuppare (worry) class
(including verbs like interest, attract, frighten, disgust, excite, etc...), needs to be
distinguished.

(11) Questo preoccupa Gianni

‘This worries Gianni’

Despite their thematic similarity, these verbs behave differently to the verbs of the so-called
piacere class and there is debate about whether we should classify these verbs as
unaccusative or not (Belletti and Rizzi 1988, Grimshaw 1990, Pesetsky 1995, among others).
This issue is addressed in the paper by Bennis.
The unaccusative hypothesis extends to other categories as well. Cinque (1990) has argued
that not only verbs but also adjectives can be divided into unaccusative and unergative ones.4
Italian (12) and (13) present examples of unaccusative adjectives and unergative adjectives,
respectively.

(12) a. Il proprioi destino non era noto a nessunoi

His own destiny was not well-known to anybody
b. Ne sono note solo alcune (delle sue poesie)
Of-them are well-known only some (of his poems)
(13) a. *I proprii amici non sono riconoscenti a nessunoi
His own friends are grateful to nobody
b. Ne sono buoni pochi (dei suoi articoli)
Of-them are good few (of his articles)

4
Cf Georgopoulos (1987) for a discussion of the unaccusative-undergative distincion with nominals.
5
This distinction is discussed in Bennis’ contribution.

2. Determining the unaccusative-unergative distinction

2.1 Some diagnostics

A number of phenomena have been taken to be sensitive to unaccusativity. These phenomena
include (see Burzio 1986, Donna Jo Napoli 1988, Levin and Rappaport 1995, among others):

a) auxiliary selection
In most Romance and Germanic languages (English and Spanish being the exceptions)
unaccusative verbs, like French arriver (arrive), select BE, while the unergatives, like French
rougir (become red), select HAVE (see Ackema 2000, Cocchi 1994, Haider and
Rindler-Schjerve 1987, Perlmutter 1989; Chierchia, Randall et al. and Sorace this volume).

(14) a. Marie est arrivée en retard

‘Marie arrived late’
b. Marie a rougi de honte
‘Marie became red with shame’

b) possibility to appear in resultative constructions

A resultative phrase denotes the state achieved by the referent of the NP it is predicated of as
a result of the action denoted by the verb in the resultative. Resultative phrases may be
predicated only of the object of a transitive verb, never of the subject. Intransitive verbs, thus,
split in two groups: resultative phrases can appear with unaccusatives verbs, but not with
unergatives, as the examples in (15) show (Levin and Rappaport-Hovav 1995, Tsujimura 1994,
Van Voorst 1985 a.o., but see also Rappaport-Hovav and Levin 2001):

(15) a. She licked the peanut butter clean

b. *Dora shouted hoarse
c. The bottle broke open

c) Prenominal perfect/passive participles.

Participles of transitive verbs can occur as attributive predicates of the nouns corresponding
to their direct objects. Unergative verbs cannot be converted to such adjectival forms, while
unaccusative ones can (see Grewendorf 1989, Hoekstra 1984, Zaenen 1993 among others):

(16) a. der geküßte Student

b. *der gearbeitete Student
c. der eingeschlafene Student

d) ne-cliticization
In languages such as Italian direct objects share the property that cliticization of a partitive
phrase by the particle ne is only possible with direct objects (17a). Certain intransitive verbs,
namely unaccusatives, permit ne-cliticization (17b), while certain others, namely unergatives,
do not (18) (see Belletti and Rizzi 1981, Burzio 1986, Lonzi 1985, among others):

(17) a. Giovanni ne ha insultati due

John of them has insulted two
b. Ne arrivano molti
6
 of them arrive many
(18) *ne telefonano molti
of them telephone many

For other languages similar looking tests, based on extraction, have been proposed: en-extraction
in French (Legendre 1989), wat-voor/was-für split in Dutch/German (Den Besten 1982).

e) impersonal passives
Unaccusative verbs cannot take the passive voice. Unlike unergative intransitive verbs, they
do not allow the impersonal passive form (Grewendorf 1989, Perlmutter 1978, Zaenen 1993).

(19) a. Er werd hier door de jongelui veel gedanst

It is danced a lot here by the young people
b. *Er werd door de kinderen in Amsterdam gebleven
It was by the children remained in Amsterdam

If the crucial characteristic of the passive is the absorption of the subject theta-role, it is clear
that no such absorption is possible in the case of unaccusative verbs (19b).

Clearly, some of these tests only apply to certain languages, or group of languages. In the literature
several authors have tried to provide a list of possible diagnostics for a particular language. To
mention a few examples: for French, Legendre (1989), Ruwet (1991); for German, Fanselow
(1985), Grewendorf (1989); for Dutch Hoekstra (1984); for Russian, Neidle (1989), Pestesky
(1982); for Spanish, Torrego (1989); for Greek, Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou (1997). To
illustrate this point, we will list some examples of unaccusativity diagnostics that are less well
known.
German allows so-called split-phrases, i.e. phrases where the head and its sattelites are
separated:

(20) a. Er hat immer dreckige kleider an

b. Kleideri hat er immer dreckige ei an
‘As for clothes, he always wears dirt ones’

Grewendorf (1989) argues that split-phrases are not allowed in subject position of transitives
(21a), and unergatives (21b), but are allowed for unaccusatives (21c,d)

(21) a. *Studenten haben fleißige das Seminar besucht.

b. *Eltern haben freigiebige dem Kindergarten eine Schaukel gespendet.
c. Fehler sind dem Hans vermeidbare unterlaufen.
d. Widersprüche sind dem Richter mehrere Aufgefallen.

It has been argued that in Russian distributive po-phrases are limited to non-oblique
VP-internal NPs, making this construction a syntactic diagnostic for unaccusativity in
Russian, as shown in (22) (Pesetsky 1982, Schoorlemmer, this volume); (22a) is a normal
transitive verb, (22b) an unaccusative verb and (22c) an unergative verb:

(22) a. Ja dal kazhdomu mal’chiku po jabloku.

I gave every boy po apple-DAT
‘I gave every boy a (different) apple.’
b. Po jabloku upalo s kazhdogo dereva.
7
 po apple-DAT fell from every tree
‘A (different) apple fell from every tree.’
c. *V kazhdoj komnate smejalos’ po devushke.
in every room laughed po girl-DAT
‘A (different) girl laughed in every room.’

For Georgian, Harris (1981) discusses several diagnostics for unaccusativity. First
there is case marking. In one specific tense/aspect category, the II Series, the case marking
can be summarised as follows:

(23) Subject Direct Object

Transitive -ma -i
Active Intransitive -ma -
Inactive Intransitive -i -

In (23) transitives are verbs with final subjects and objects (to use the terminology of
Relational Grammar). She argues that active intransitives have an argument that is initial and
final subject, i.e. unergatives, while inactive intransitives are verbs with an initial object and a
final subject, i.e. unaccusatives.
Suppletion of verb roots, sensitive to the number feature of an argument, is another
phenomenon where the unaccusative-unergative distinction in Georgian seems to surface.
The verb ‘kill’ constitutes an example: moķvla is used for ‘kill’ with a singular object, daxoca
with a plural object (24a,b); in the corresponding unaccusative constructions (24c,d) the same
suppletion is found:

(24) a. mgel-i movķali

wolfNom 1S-3DOkillII
‘I killed the wolf’
b. mgl-eb-i davxoce
wolfNom 1S-3DOkillII
‘I killed the wolves’
c. mgel-i moķvda
wolfNom 3SkillII
‘The wolf died’
d. mgl-eb-i daixoca
wolfNom 3SkillII
‘The wolves died’

To summarise, diagnostics are not necessarily cross-linguistically valid. However, whatever

the precise diagnostics are for a particular language, in essence they all rely on:
(i) there not being an external thematic role (impersonal passives) – as is the case in Relational
Grammar, and the Principles and Parameters theory – or there being a thematic role for
the subject function which is of an ‘object type’ – as is the case in Lexical Functional
Grammar.
(ii) a movement relation between object and subject position (ne-cliticization) – for those
frameworks that allow for derivations.
With respect to the latter issue, the notions deep and surface unaccusativity were introduced in the
literature (Levin and Rappaport 1995; also Bresnan and Zaenen 1990). Diagnostics of surface
unaccusativity are diagnostics that apply only if the argument of an unaccusative verb remains in
its deep structure position, i.e. the object position, such as ne-cliticization. Diagnostics of deep
8
unaccusativity are all those diagnostics where this doesn’t apply, such as impersonal passives.

2.2 Unaccusativity mismatches

It has been observed that unaccusativity diagnostics do not uniformly pick up the same class of
verbs, within a language and across languages, leading to what has been called Unaccusativity
Mismatches (see Dowty 1991, L. Levin 1986, McClure 1990, Van Voorst 1984; Eisenberg 1989,
Kathol 1991 for German; Smolensky and al. 1992 for French; Zaenen 1993 for Dutch).
Observe, for instance the Dutch examples in (25).

(25) a. de gevallen/*gewerkte // *gebleven /*gebloede jongen

the fallen/worked // stayed/bled boy
b. De jongen is gevallen/*gewerkt // *gebleven/*gebloed
The boy is fallen/worked // stayed/bled
c. Er wordt *gevallen/ gewerkt // *gebleven/*gebloed
There was fallen/worked // stayed/bled

(25a-c) clearly shows that vallen is an unaccusative verb and werken (work) is an unergative:
only vallen is allowed as a prenominal perfect participle; vallen takes BE, werken take
HAVE; only werken allows impersonal passivization. However verbs like blijven (say) and
bloeden (bleed) show mixed behaviour; blijven, bloeden cannot be used as a prenominal
perfect participle, and should, thus be, unergative. But they take BE and do not allow
impersonal passivization, classifying them as unaccusative.
Cross-linguistically the same indeterminacy holds. For instance, in the domain of
psychological predicates there seems to be no consistency across languages as to the
behaviour of the EO class with respect to the unaccusativity diagnostics. For instance, in
Italian, and Dutch please type predicates take auxiliary BE. On the other hand, in German,
predicates like gefallen ‘please’ select auxiliary have, do not form attributive participles and
impersonal passives (see Grewendorf 1989). Moreover, in French the selection of être ‘be’ as
perfect auxiliary is restricted to a narrow set of unaccusative verbs, and there are languages
such as English, Spanish, Greek in which all intransitive predicates select auxiliary ‘have’
(see Sorace this volume).
Note that we can, of course, only truly speak of unaccusativity mismatches if we are
sure that the diagnostics that we are talking about are clear-cut. We know that for many
diagnostics, perhaps all, this is not the case. For instance, in languages like Spanish and
Greek unaccusative verbs are characterised by the possibility of having bare plurals in
post-verbal position, which is disallowed by unergative verbs (see Torrego 1989 for Spanish,
Alexiadou 1996 for Greek, also Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou 1997).

(26) a. *epezan pedhia

were playing children
‘Children were playing’
b. irthan pedhia
came children
‘Children came’

However, bare plurals in postverbal position with unergative predicates become acceptable
when a locative adverbial phrase is added to the sentence in both Spanish and Greek:

(27) edo pezun pedja

here play-3pl children
9
 ‘There are children playing here’

Moreover, not all unaccusative predicates accept bare plurals and speakers’ judgements vary
as to the degree of grammaticality of the sentences. For instance, verbs of change of state
which are related to adjectives or nouns do not give fully grammatical examples:

(28) ??pagosan potamia

froze rivers
‘Rivers froze’

The presence of bare plurals seems to identify (a) verbs of appearance or existence, i.e. the
ones that do not participate in the causative/inchoative alternation, (b) break verbs, i.e. verbs
of change of state that are not related to adjectives or nouns.

3. The Lexicon-Syntax Interface and Unaccusativity

3.1 Levels of representation

Concentrating on the lexical semantics of a verb and the syntactic structures it can occur in, we can
discern at least three different levels of representation for the present discussion: (i) a lexical
semantic representation, (ii) a lexical syntactic representation, (iii) a syntactic structure
representation. The lexical semantic representation of a predicate, often called lexical conceptual
structure (LCS), is the ‘deep’ semantic description, which is probably unique for any particular
predicate, or a class of predicates. LCS decomposes the meaning of a verb into structures
containing variables and meta-predicates (like Cause, Be, etc.). Such a semantic description is
mapped onto a more syntax-like representation, often called predicate argument structure or
argument structure (AS). It is widely assumed that the unaccusative/unergative distinction is
encoded at this level. Argument structure represents how many arguments a verb requires and to
which syntactic argument positions they are linked, for instance by making a distinction between
external and internal theta positions (Williams 1981). It has been argued to further specify internal
thematic roles (Marantz 1984) or specify case properties of predicates (Belletti & Rizzi 1988). The
argument structure representation is not unique for individual predicates or classes of predicates.
Two different predicates, like walk and sleep, will probably have the same argument structure.
This level of representation is then mapped onto a syntactic representation, which is assumed to be
a standard generative syntactic structure. Although essentially different, lexical conceptual
structure and argument structure are part of the lexical representation of a predicate and thus part
of the lexicon, to be distinguished from syntax. In other words, lexical semantic properties are
directly reflected in argument structure and the mapping to syntax from argument structure is, in
most cases, trivial. Crucially, this means that there is no direct relation between syntax and the
lexical semantics of predicates, the LCS, but only to AS, as sketched in (29):

(29)
lexical conceptual argument syntactic structure
structure structure

LEXICON

SYNTAX

This picture represents by and large the position on lexical representations of authors like Carrier
and Randall (1993), Grimshaw (1990), Levin and Rappaport (1986, 1988), Tenny (1987), and
10
Zubizarreta (1987). In Jackendoff’s work, and the work of Van Valin (1990), for instance, LCS is
defined in such a way that it incorporates all relevant aspects of AS. As such, lexical semantic
notions are, in principle, accessible to syntax. This is also the position of Levin and Rappaport
(1995)’s, who formulate mapping rules that directly relate syntax and lexical semantics.

3.2 The Universal Alignment Hypothesis

In essence the debate on the unaccusative-unergative distinction could be summarised in the
following two questions:

(i) Is the class of unaccusative predicates semantically defined? This can be decomposed into
several questions. For example, is unaccusativity defined at LCS? Is there a separate level of
AS and LCS? Are there semantic features guiding the distinction?
(ii) Is the unaccusative-unergative distinction syntactically encoded?
(iii) What is the role of AS?

These issues were first discussed in Relational Grammar. In the Universal Alignment Hypothesis
of Perlmutter and Postal (1984) the answer to these questions was clearly formulated (without
reference, of course, to the notions given in (29):

(30) There exist principles of universal grammar which predict the initial relation [= syntactic
encoding, ME] borne by each nominal in a given clause from the meaning of the clause.

In other words, unaccusativity can be semantically defined, and is also syntactically encoded. This
is also the position taken by Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995). They extensively argue that the
syntactic properties of intransitive verbs are semantically determined. They do so by isolating the
semantic factors that decide whether a verb will be unaccusative or unergative by thoroughly
examining the behaviour of verbs that belong to a range of semantic classes in a number of
syntactic constructions.
In all approaches that take unaccusativity to be reflected in the syntax, an explanation for
the correspondence between semantic properties and syntactic behaviour has been given in terms
of the postulation of certain linking principles, between Lexical Conceptual Structure and
Argument Structure and between Argument Structure and syntax. The latter force the relevant
argument of an unaccusative verb to be realised in direct object position, while requiring that of
the unergative to be realised in subject position. Such proposals are based on principles the Uni-
formity of Theta- Assignment Hypothesis (see Baker 1988), or the Aspectual Interface Hypothesis
(see Tenny 1992, 1994).
Burzio (1986), an exponent of the syntactic approach, gives a positive answer on question
(ii) above, but does not address question (i). Baker (1988), Pesetsky (1995) continue the tradition
of Relational Grammar and answer both questions positively. In non-derivational approaches, such
as such as advocated in Van Valin (1990), Dowty (1991), or Bresnan (2000) the answer has also
been that there is a direct relation. That is, the syntactic behaviour of the verb in unaccusativity
tests are a direct result of their semantics. The two classes of intransitive verbs can be
differentiated on semantic grounds and the semantic characterisation obviates the need to attribute
different syntactic representations to the verbs they contain; unaccusativity is not, or does not need
to be, syntactically encoded.

3.3 Determining factors of unaccusativity

Several authors have argued that (the lack of) agentivity is the crucial notion underlying
unaccusativity (see Perlmutter 1978, Pinker 1989, Pustejovsky 1995 among many others): the
single argument of unergatives tends to be agentive, while the single argument of unaccusatives
11
tends to be a theme or a patient or an undergoer. Perlmutter’s (1983) lists verb meanings that
generally belong to each class:5

(30) a. Generally unergative predicates:

i. Predicates describing willed or volitional acts e.g. work, play, speak, talk, smile,
grimace, ink, walk, box, knock, bang, laugh, dance; Manner of speaking verbs,
e.g. whisper, shout, bellow; Predicates describing sounds made by animals e.g.
bark, quack, roar.
ii. certain involuntary bodily processes e.g. cough, sneeze, burp, sleep.
b. Generally unaccusative predicates:
i. predicates expressed by adjectives in English; predicates describing size shapes,
weights, colours, smells
ii. predicates whose initial nuclear term is semantically a patient e.g. burn, fall,
drop, sink, float, tremble, shake, melt, freeze, evaporate, solidify, crystallise, dim,
redden, darken.
iii. predicates of existing or happening e.g. exist, happen, occur, take place,
iv. involuntary emission of stimuli, e.g. shine, glow, clink, pop, smell, sting
v. aspectual predicates, e.g. begin, start, stop, cease

According to other views (see Tenny 1987 and others), the crucial semantic factor is telicity:
unaccusative verbs tend to be telic, while unergative ones tend to be atelic.
Based on the existence of unaccusativity mismatches (see above), Rosen (1984) and others
have argued that meaning alone is not predictive of class membership, as there is no single
semantic property common to all unaccusative verbs selected by all diagnostics in various
languages. For instance, Rosen observes that there exists a class of verb meanings which may go
either way depending on the language, e.g. die is unaccusative in Choctaw, and unergative in
Italian.
In Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995) the semantic notions of activity and change of state,
as well as the notion of internal and external causation are argued to be facets of meaning that
figure prominently in the determination of a verb’s status with respect to the Unaccusativity
Hypothesis. On this view there is a correlation between the syntactic diagnostics and the semantic
properties of intransitive verbs. Given that states of affairs can be conceptualised in different ways,
one would expect that certain verbs, if they appear in unaccusative syntactic environments, impose
accomplishment-achievement/external causation readings, when they occur in unergative syntactic
environments, they impose activity/internal causation readings (see also Levin 1993). On this view
then, there is a continuum between the two classes, and the mixed behaviour of certain predicates
depends on the fact that they are compatible with both types of interpretation.

3.3 The syntax of unaccusativity

The developments within syntactic theorising have resulted in a situation where the picture of the
syntax of unaccusativity drawn in Burzio can no longer be maintained. Once VP-shells are
introduced (Larson 1988), thematic roles are no longer forced to occur in unique positions, and the
subject-object asymmetry is no longer expressed as a specifier-complement asymmetry.
Moreover, with the introduction of elaborated functional structures (Pollock 1989, Ouhalla 1988)
and the VP-internal subject hypothesis (Koopman and Sportiche 1991, Kitagawa 1986) the
conception of A-movement has changed. While in early 80’s the single argument of unaccusatives
5
Pesetsky 1994 rightly points out that the UAH does nor force one to the position that a specific
thematic role is always linked to a specific grammatical configuration (which could be seen as the
idea behind the UTAH). However, Perlmutter’s listing of verb meanings suggests that that position is
what he has, in fact, in mind.
12
was generated as a D-structure object and moved to an A(rgument)-position, i.e. the position
where the subject of unergatives was generated, now in both unergatives and unaccusatives the
single argument is generated in the VP domain and moves to the functional domain, thus blurring
the distinction between the Merger and the S(urface)-syntax mapping of the two. Given that the
specifier-complement distinction is also lost, a way to express structurally their difference is
through the postulation of an asymmetry in terms of semi-functional heads, e.g. v/Voice
(Chomsky 1995, Kratzer 1994). According to these theories, the subject of an unergative is
introduced by a semi-functional head v, while the unaccusative argument belongs to the lexical
verb:
(31) a. vP (Unacc) b. vP (Unerg)
3 3
v’ NP v’
3 3
v VP v VP
3 3
V NP V

This type of representation re-opens the way of a syntax that directly reflects lexical
decomposition (Dowty 1979, von Stechow 1995, Kratzer 1994, Marantz 1993). Such analyses are
adopted in the papers by e.g. Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou, Bennis, and Embick in this
volume. Note that assuming such an approach has the result that some of the diagnostics such as
ne-cliticization, which crucially relied on the notion of government and the specifier-complement
distinction need to be reformulated. However, as already pointed out in section 2, most of the other
diagnostics were either poorly understood as to how they relate to unaccusativity (e.g. auxiliary
selection) or most straightforwardly captured in terms of lexical primitives (e.g. the
theme-externalisation rule in adjectival passives Williams 1981, the expression of agent/animacy
in impersonal passives and –er nominals).
‘Syntactic approaches’ to unaccusativity do not assume a clear-cut distinction between
syntax and lexical semantics. Semantics is not a primitive, deriving unaccusativity but rather
verbal meaning is expressed via certain syntactic configurations. Here we can distinguish between
two subtypes of approaches. For example, Dowty (1979) following the generative semantics
literature, develops a lexical decomposition analysis of verbs, according to which their semantics
and syntax are indistinguishable. Hale and Keyser’s (1993, 1997) configurational theta-theory
(also assumed in Chomsky (1995), makes the claim that unaccusativity depends on the way
arguments combine with predicators belonging to different categories (A,V,P), thus experiencing
different relations and having different combinatorial options. In other words, for these approaches
there is no D-structure representation distinct from a lexical semantics representation.
A somehow different view, which also however crucially relies on syntactic structure,
is pursued in Borer (1994, this volume). According to Borer, no hierarchical or thematic
information is associated with arguments in verb entries. Arguments receive their
interpretation by being in particular aspectual specifiers, which enforce subject of result or
subject of process readings. This accounts for the different aspectual properties associated
with each class. For unaccusative and unergative verbs the representation of VP is identical:
the verb is associated with a single unordered argument.
It is often assumed that the semantic-based approach to unaccusativity is incompatible
with the syntactic-based approach. The former approach assumes that semantic features are
primitives and the syntax depends on a set of linking rules. The latter approach claims that
syntactic configurations are the primitives from which meaning can be deduced. There are
also reasons to believe that both approaches have their limitations. For example, a
13
semantic-based approach fails to capture regularities and parametric differences in the
lexicon-syntax mapping that crucially depend on the syntactic structure introduced by
Prepositions, Verbs, Adjectives and Nouns (see Hale and Keyser 1993, and especially 1997).
On the other hand, a configurational theta-theory has little to say on issues such as, for
example, alternating vs. non-alternating unaccusatives, a difference that has been
convincingly argued to depend on the semantic notion of ‘internal’ vs. ‘external’ causation by
Levin and Rappaport (1995, who built on Chierchia’s (this volume) and Reinhart’s (2000)
view on the alternating unaccusatives, as being basically dyadic formed on the basis of
theta-role reduction). The question, then, is: can we develop an account that combines them?
What are the semantic features that pre-exist, how much is derivable from structure and how
do the two combine? See Sorace’s contribution for discussion and criticism of both
approaches that rely on linking rules as well as purely syntactic approaches.

3.4 Acquisition
The study of Unaccusativity is one of the areas where acquisition research has had a profound
influence on syntactic research. It is clear that unaccusative verbs pose a learning problem. In
many contexts, they are identical to unergative verbs in their surface syntax. Acquisition research
has shown that children are sensitive to the distinction between unergatives and unaccusatives
(Babyonyshev 2001, Snyder et al, 1995, Van Hout 1996, Van Hout et al. 1993, Verrips 1998,
a.o.). The question that arises is how do children distinguish between these two types of
intransitive predicates, and what the is property guiding them in this distinction. Influential
approaches to language acquisition crucially rely on the lexical semantics of verbs to help the
learner bootstrap her way into the preliminary projection of the syntax of argument structure
(Semantic Bootstrapping, see in particular Grimshaw 1981; Pinker, 1984, 1989, and
subsequent literature). Other approaches rely on the early knowledge of the syntax of
argument structure to help the child acquire the meaning of the verbs associated with that
structure (Syntactic Bootstrapping Gleitman 1991). The acquisition of the
unergative-unaccusative distinction is often explained in terms of semantic bootstrapping thus
arguing for a semantic or a linking based approach to unaccusativity.
More recently a number of papers on second language acquisition and the
unaccusative-unergative distinction appeared (Balcom 1997, Hirakawa 2001, Sorace and
Somura 2001, Yuan 1999, a.o.). The relevant research questions revolve around the
well-known distinction between universal developmental paths and transfer: can adult L2
learners acquire properties of the L2 lexicon that are not deducible from the input and that
cannot be transferred from the L1? Research on the acquisition of lexical alternations in a
second language has shown that the problems encountered by L2 learners in the initial stages,
and the overgeneralizations they make, are consistent with those found in L1 acquisition,
regardless of the native language. These issues are briefly addressed in Sorace’s contribution.

14
Part II: The papers

A common view on the distinction between unaccusatives and passives/middles is (a) the absence
of distinct verbal morphology and (b) the absence of an external thematic role which is visible in
the syntax. In this volume several papers address the accuracy of the above statements. In what
follows we offer a summary of the contributions which either directly address the issues discussed
in part I of the introduction or explore the implications of the presence of special morphology for
the structural representation of unaccusatives and the status of the external thematic role in them.
Gennaro Chierchia proposes the adoption of an (independently motivated) theory of properties
as the semantic algebra in terms of which truth conditions are recursively specified. The main
characteristic of such a theory is that properties are taken as primitives and linked to their
arguments via predication, where the latter is viewed as a map from properties into
propositional functions. Thus, in a sense, predicates come in two forms: as properties and as
propositional functions (with predication connecting them). Chierchia indicates how to use
such a theory in interpreting compositionally fragments of LF, i.e. in mapping LF into lf. The
main assumption made is that clausal structures come about via predication, which he takes
to be associated with infl (the predication principle). This principle, which plays a key role in
his approach, is “configurational”, in the sense that it makes crucial use of syntactic
configurations (much like the projection principle). One of the consequences of the
predication principle is that verbs that are associated with propositional functions must have
certain characteristics: they will have to take their argument within the VP and will have to be
associated with an expletive subject. These are central features of unaccusatives. Chierchia
further argues that unaccusatives should be regarded as a special sort of reflexivization (see
also Reinhart and Siloni this volume, Steinbach this volume, cf. Embick this volume). Such a
form of reflexivization is also involved in the “externalization” of the internal argument of
unaccusatives via NP movement. This hypothesis accounts for (a) the unstable character of
their valence, (b) the association of unaccusatives with reflexive morphology, (c) the control
properties of da sé phrases, and (d) the aspectual properties of unaccusatives. Finally,
Chierchia’s semantics has led to a reformulation of the aux selection rule of Italian as a
purely semantic domain condition on the meaning of essere that exploits the notion of subject
affected property. Such a reformulation may pave the way to a genuinely non disjunctive
account of the factors triggering essere selection (cf. Sorace this volume).
For Angeliek van Hout telicity is the defining property of unaccusativity. She argues that
unaccusativity reflects the mapping configuration in which the verb’s single argument moves
through the specifier position of AgrO on its way to the specifier position of AgrS. Movement
through AgrO is triggered when the predicate that contains the verb is telic, because, as
two-argument verbs also show, AgrOP is the locus for telicity checking. Examining first
telic-atelic alternations with two-argument verbs in Dutch, she shows that in order to get a
telic reading, a direct object needs to be projected; an oblique object or an intransitive won’t
do. Compare telic in 5 minuten een botherham eten ‘eat a sandwich in 5 minutes’ versus
atelic urenlang van de taart eten ‘eat of the cake for hours’ and urenlang eten ‘eat for hours’..
Particle and prefixed variants do not show this flexibility; they are obligatorily transitive.
Compare een boterham opeten ‘eat up a sandwich’ versus *van de taart opeten ‘eat up from
the cake’ and *Ik at op ‘I ate up’.. These verbs are inherently telic. The correlation between
telicity and transitivity is explained in a lexicon-syntax mapping system that is based on
semantic feature checking. Assuming that the event structure of a predicate must be identified
(Grimshaw 1990), the telicity feature is checked in AgrOP (see Borer 1994). The argument in
Spec, AgrO is associated with the event participant that ends in a final state. Applying this
mapping rule to single-argument verbs, telic single-argument predicates should be
unaccusative, i.e., the argument moves through AgrOP to check telicity before moving to
15
subject position. And indeed they are. Using two unaccusative diagnostics in Dutch -
auxiliary selection and prenominal perfect participles - the unergative-unaccusative split lines
up exactly along the atelic-telic dimension. The same holds for flexible single-argument
verbs, e.g. atelic and unergative lopen ‘walk’ versus telic and unaccusative naar huis lopen
‘walk home’ and verb/particle verb pairs such as atelic branden ‘burn’ / telic verbranden
‘burn up’. According to van Hout, there is no effect of any additional unaccusative
determinant in Dutch. Finally, she discusses how her analysis compares to other theories of
unaccusativity, including other aspectual ones.
Hans Bennis takes as a starting point the proposal concerning the representation of arguments in
Chomsky (1995, Ch.4) in terms of a light v introducing the external argument, which allows a
rather straightforward implementation of Burzio’s generalization: assuming that it is v - and not V-
that assigns accusative Case and introduces the External Argument (see Hale and Keyser 1993),
v-less verbal structures are unaccusative. Bennis argues that this account is only partially correct,
and that all three possible syntactic configurations are found, namely a v-less structures, v
embedding a VP but not introducing an external argument, and a v embedding a VP and
introducing an external argument. To substantiate this point Bennis turns to the domain of
adjectival projections (a-AP), where all three configurations are found. Apart from adjectives
which have an external argument, he argues that there are two further types of unaccusative
adjectives: complex and simplex adjectives. The former include an a without an external
argument, while the latter lack an a altogether. He further extends this typology to the verbal
domain. He argues that the three classes of psych predicates (Belletti and Rizzi 1988) correspond
to the three possible configurations. Psychological verbs of the preoccupare-class show the
predicted properties of complex unaccusatives (they include a light v), while verbs of the piacere
fall under simplex unaccusativity (they lack a light v).
Artemis Alexiadou and Elena Anagnostopoulou argue, on the basis of the distribution of voice
morphology associated with detransitivization in the causative-inchoative alternation, argue
for an approach along the lines of Kratzer and von Stechow, but crucially they do not link
unaccusativity to presence vs. absence of voice. Their investigation of (a) the consistency vs.
gaps in the distribution of this morphology and (b) the semantic/syntactic properties such a
marking correlates with, lead us to a picture of the structural reprsentation of unaccusativity
which is more refined in that we do not take anti-causatives to have a unified structure (a
related view expressed in Borer 1991, and see also Embick this volume). More specifically,
they argue that the patterns of voice morphology found in Greek can be accounted for if there
are at least three structures involved in the formation of anti-causatives. They propose that
anti-causatives are formed on the basis of an intransitive v BECOME/RESULT which
embeds either an AdjectiveP, or a VoiceP or a possessive construction.
David Embick focuses in his contribution on primarily morpho-syntactic properties that
unaccusatives, passives and reflexives. In particular the nature of the morphological syncretism,
labelled u-syncretism by Embick, is examined within the framework of Distributed Morphology.
Embick advances the idea that the source of this pattern is a particular syntactic property, namely
the lack of an external argument (contra Reinhart and Siloni). The syntax generates passives,
reflexives and unaccusatives each fully specified for distinct features. U-syncretism results from
the realization of v in a particular structural environment, as represented in () below, where -X
refers to the feature associated with non-active morphology:
(32) v ↔ v-X/_ no external argument
By underspecifying -X, an answer is given to the common morphological pattern of constructions
with distinct syntactic and semantic properties.
Tanya Reinhart and Tali Siloni offer a critical survey of recent literature on the relation between
reflexives and unaccusatives, and take up a stand against unaccusative analyses of reflexives
(contra Embick this volume). Such analyses derive reflexives via a process of dethematizing the
16
external argument, thus forming unaccusative-like entries (e.g. Marantz 1984, Grimshaw 1990,
Pesetsky 1995 among others) Reinhart and Siloni first question the empirical basis of such
approaches, whether they advance a lexical derivation (Marantz 1984, Grimshaw 1990) or a
syntactic one (Pesetsky 1995). They further supply evidence from Romance and Semitic
languages that the grammatical subject of reflexives is the external argument, unlike the subject of
unaccusatives. Following proposals by Chierchia (this volume) and Reinhart (1997), they argue
that reflexives and unaccusatives are both derived from the corresponding transitive entries by the
same type of reduction operation, which operates on the internal argument to form reflexives and
on the external argument to produce unaccusatives. Finally, they attribute the differences between
French-type and Hebrew-type reflexives (e.g with regard to productivity) to the different
component (lexicon vs. syntax) of grammar at which the reflexive reduction operation takes place.
Marcus Steinbach focuses on the derivation of anticausatives in German, especially of reflexive
anticausatives. According to Steinbach, such constructions are syntactically transitive reflexive
sentences (TRS) and they are multiply ambiguous in that apart from the anticausative
interpretation, TRS can also yield a reflexive, a middle, and an inherent reflexive reading. The
main claim is that the four different kinds of TRS above do not differ syntactically, but only in
their semantic/thematic interpretation. In constructions which include a reflexive pronoun this is
either interpreted as the second (internal) argument of the verb (reflexive) or it indicates valency
reduction. This operation either takes the form of saturation of the first or external argument in
middle constructions or it involves reduction of the first or external argument in anticausatives and
inherent reflexives (see Chierchia this volume). The (thematic) ambiguity of TRS is derived at the
interface between syntax and semantics. This analysis is based on a slightly modified version of
the binding theory that relies on Reinhart and Reuland’s (1993) and Pollard and Sag’s (1994)
reformulation and on the (independently motivated) distinction between structural (nominative and
accusative) and oblique (dative) case in German. It follows from the binding theory modified
along these lines that the reflexive pronoun in the position of the direct object can, but need not,
introduce an argument variable on its own into the semantic representation. Hence, it can, but need
not, be interpreted as a semantic argument of the verb.. In the second case the (syntactic) subject
binding the reflexive pronoun must be interpreted as the internal argument of the verb and the first
or external semantic argument of the verb must be either bound by an existential quantifier
(argument saturation) or totally deleted from the semantic representation (argument reduction).
Two things follow from the unified analysis of TRS: First, as opposed to the reflexive
anticausative, non-reflexive anticausatives are basically unaccusative one-place predicates that
allow causativization. Hence, these predicates are not derived from transitives via
argument-reduction but transitives from intransitives via argument-addition. Second, a syntactic
derivation (A-movement of the internal argument to the subject position) is not available for
non-reflexive anticausatives and unaccusatives in general.
Maaike Schoorlemmer shows on the basis of Russian that unaccusativity must be syntactically
encoded, Specifically, she discusses two syntactic configurations that are found only with
transitive and unaccusative verbs hence providing diagnostics for syntactic unaccusativity in
Russian. The first diagnostic is the distributive po-phrase meaning ‘one X each’, which can occur
only in object position in a transitive verb, and it occurs with unaccusative, but not unergative
verbs. If the occurrence restrictions on po-PPs were due to a semantic feature on the verb it would
have to be due to the existence of a semantic set of arguments that can occur either as a po-PP or
as a DP. There are reasons why it is hard to imagine such a set: the periphrastic expression ‘one
each’ is possible in many more contexts than the supposed semantic set. The second diagnostic is
telic aspectuality, which Schoorlemmer takes to be due to the presence of an internal argument
with particular quantificational properties. Since this type of telicity is also found with
unaccusative verbs, the natural assumption is that the single argument of such verbs is in fact
syntactically internal. The analysis of telic aspectuality is extended to derive imperfectivity, which
17
emerges as a further syntactic unaccusativity diagnostic. The only way to generalise over
properties of unaccusative verbs as they show up under different diagnostics is to assume that they
are syntactically encoded as properties of internal arguments.
Antonella Sorace reviews some of the arguments for the Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy
(ASH) and suggests some implications for theories of split intransitivity. The ASH indicates
that within each of the two classes of intransitive verbs, some verbs require a given auxiliary
more categorically than others. As Sorace discusses, not only auxiliary selection, but a
number of syntactic manifestations of the unaccusative/unergative distinction in Italian and
other languages are lexically constrained and tend to be acquired in a gradient fashion,
starting with some verbs and gradually spreading to other verbs. The crucial components
identified by the ASH are telicity and agentivity, which define a structured hierarchy of verb
types based on universal aspectual relations. The extremes of the hierarchy consist of
maximally distinct ‘core’ verbs, which display consistent unaccusative/unergative behavior;
in contrast, peripheral verb types closer to the centre are susceptible to syntactic variation.
The mapping of the core verbs to unaccusative or unergative syntax is largely invariant across
languages, whereas intermediate mappings may vary cross-linguistically because different
languages may have different cut-off points along the hierarchy. The ASH points to an
analysis of split intransitivity in terms of gradient lexical-semantic effects on the syntactic
realisation of arguments, and thus firmly places the solution to the puzzle at the
lexicon-syntax interface (contra Borer this volume, van Hout this volume). She further
investigates the predictions made for theories of first and second language acquisition.
Tonjes Veenstra explores the syntax of the resultative construction which has been viewed as an
unaccusativity diagnostic. Focussing on Saramaccan where resultatives are expressed by means of
serial verb constructions, he argues for an unified analysis of the syntax of resultative
constructions, as found in languages without serialization e.g. Germanic, and in languages with
serialization. The analysis involves a Larsonian VP-shell configuration, in which the 2nd VP is an
adjunct to the 1st VP (see Larson 1990, Veenstra 1996). Major parts of the discussion concentrates
on the internal make-up of the 2nd VP, addressing the following questions: a. Is the shared
argument part of the 2nd VP or not? b. Is it a full-blown VP? c. Is it a passivized VP? d. Is it an
unaccusative VP? He argues that the shared argument is NOT part of the 2nd VP, but it belongs to
the first one. Moreover, he argues that second VP is a full non passivized, non-unaccusative VP.
Veenstra argues that there is a aspectual projection inside the 2nd VP in serial verb constructions.
Moreover, it is not the case that only transitive verbs can participate in resultative serial verb
constructions.
Hagit Borer addresses the problem of learnability with unaccusativity from the point of view of
an approach to argument structure, according to which syntactic as well as interpretational
properties of arguments are independent of information stored in lexical entries (van Hout,
1996; Borer, 1994, Kratzer, 1994, among others). In Borer’s model, both internal and
external arguments are assigned their interpretation in the specifiers of functional, aktionsart
categories, and the verb associated with those structures is interpreted in accordance with its
general conceptual meaning as augmented by these independently licensed arguments. The
language learner within such a model could be assumed to pass through a developmental
stage in which her knowledge of the structure and the interpretation of arguments is
complete, yet her understanding of the lexical verb may remain flawed. Borer argues that
precisely such a stage exists in the acquisition of Hebrew. Children go through a stage in
which their argument structure is syntactically well-formed, but the verb associated with this
argument structure is inappropriate from the adult perspective. Errors illustrating this
developmental stage consist of the following types: (i) valency errors with attested root pairs,
(ii) valency errors with unattested root pairs, (iii) morpho-phonological innovations based on
existing roots. These errors are explained if one assumes that the child has the computational
18
means to construct the syntactico-semantic argument structure and hence understand the
meaning of the sentences in question, but has an incomplete knowledge of the way in which
that syntactic structure determines the particular morpho-phonology of the verbal form.
Rather, given an exposure to a particular root in some environment, the child forms a
preliminary concept associated with that root, and then proceeds to randomize across the
available, well-formed, morpho-phonological templates, having failed to acquire a full
lexicalized knowledge of the relationship between a particular, often idiosyncratic
morpho-phonological instantiation of a particular root, and the argument frame within which
it may be used. Clearly, then, a picture entirely incompatible with acquiring the projection of
arguments on the basis of lexical information, or with any other type of bottom-up approach,
in which a full understanding of the lexical semantics and the argument structure associated
with of a particular verb is crucial for its proper syntactic use. A number of other possible
accounts for the earlier behavior are discussed and rejected.
Janet Randall, Angeliek van Hout, … & al. examine unaccusatives in two closely related
languages, Dutch and German, and investigates how they are acquired. A close look at the adult
languages shows that Dutch and German draw the line between the two classes in different places.
But if we assume that a given unaccusative verb means the same thing in the two languages, the
difference must lie in the linking rules that link the semantics of a verb to either an unergative or
an unaccusative syntax. German appears to base its semantics-syntax linking on “locomotion”,
while Dutch seems to use “endpoint”.. If this is the case, then linking rules cannot be universal, but
must be learned for each language. An experiment was designed to test the relevance of three
factors that have been proposed to operate in determining intransitive verb class: (1) whether the
participant is animate or not (Ernie vs. a block); (2) whether the verb is telic, implying that an
endpoint is reached (Ernie disappeared vs. Ernie ran); and (3) for verbs that have an endpoint,
whether it is encoded in the verb itself or added by a PP (Ernie disappeared in the barn vs. Ernie
ran into the barn), in which there is an additional syntactic clue that the verb encodes an endpoint.
Coincidentally, verbs with endpoint PPs were locomotion verbs. Subjects participated in a
sentence-completion task helping puppets “learn” novel verbs for novel actions that were acted out
by puppets in a series of videotaped scenes designed to test the three factors. Subjects’ auxiliary
verb choice in the sentence completion task was used as the mark of verb class. The results
showed that semantic factors appear to determine unaccusativity. For all subjects, verbs with clear
endpoints tend to be classified as unaccusative. The presence of an animate actor also plays a
significant role in signalling unergativity in all but the youngest Dutch subjects. When these two
factors compete, however, endpoint appears to be more important, and the verb is considered
unaccusative. German children behave like Dutch children initially, relying on endpoint rather
than locomotion, although it is not the relevant distinction in their target language, and not the one
the German adults used. Whether endpoint was carried in the PP or in the verb itself also made a
significant difference, presumably because when it appears in a PP, the endpoint is more
detectable. Taken together, the results provide evidence for two semantic universals in determining
unaccusativity.

19
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