Only transitive verbs can passivize.

[metal56]

Is this an ergative pair?

The student passivized the verb.

The verb passivized.

---

How's this:

English can passivize the transitive verb.

The transitive verb can passivize <in English>

The transitive verb can be passivized in English.

[JuanTwoThree]

Ergative seems, at its simplest and with reference to English, to describe a verb that can't be bothered with being passive any more. An active with a passive meaning. Some brave soul had to be the pioneer and say "This book is selling well" for the first time. And stuff the dictionaries.

It seems so arbitrary though. We'll take "Houses are selling less" but not "Houses are buying less". Why one and not the other?

[metal56]

Is it a question of semantics?


The verb passivized. (went through a transformation)

The ice melted. (went through a transformation)

The book borrowed. (no transformation)

[Harzer]

Slightly off-topic but relevant:

In the last 10 years or so I have found that it is OK to say "a livable city".

Yet up to then, only adjectives derived from transitive verbs were allowed in that spot"

An indescribable smell = a smell that one cannot describe
A tortuous road = a road that tortures him who drives along it (or should that be "he who ..."?)

But a livable city is not " a city that one lives". So we have a different aspect of the same tendency.

Harzer

[metal56]

More wood for the fires:

2.2 The ergativization of transitives

The fact that ergativization is common in modern English has not gone unnoticed in the literature. For example, Keyser and Roeper (1984) observe the productivity of the ergative pattern in modern scientific and bureaucratic English, as reflected, for instance, in the ergativization of processes expressed by verbs ending in -ize (oxidize, federalize, etc.). They immediately add, however, that not all -ize forms ergativize, but that it involves a combination of -ize and the properties base form.

http://www.univ-lille3.fr/silex/equipe/ ... hronic.PDF

[metal56]

Slightly off-topic but relevant:

In the last 10 years or so I have found that it is OK to say "a livable city".

Yet up to then, only adjectives derived from transitive verbs were allowed in that spot"

An indescribable smell = a smell that one cannot describe
A tortuous road = a road that tortures him who drives along it (or should that be "he who ..."?)

But a livable city is not " a city that one lives". So we have a different aspect of the same tendency.

Harzer

Not as uncommon as some might claim:

Results 1 - 30 of about 9,540 English pages for "a livable city"..

[LarryLatham]

Can you take a look at this and tell me if * needs a direct object?

Hoy! Is there an electrician in the house?

Teacher Dave: Right, listen up. Theme for today is "control objectives" and how to make a generator passive.

Student Stan: (Engrossed in a thin paperback) Uh? Oh great!

Teacher Dave: Are you listening?

Student Stan: Uh-huh.

Teacher Dave: This is the generator.

Student Stan: Uh-huh. Mm-m.

Teacher Dave: This is the loop.

Student Stan: Loop?

Teacher Dave: The loop can passivize*.

Student Stan: Passivise what?

Teacher Dave: I feel like I'm in an Abbot and Costello sketch.

Student Stan: Uh?

Teacher Dave: Concentrate! And put that grammar book down!

I don't think so, M56. It certainly is the case that a grammatical object could go there, but I don't think it's mandatory...meaning that passivize can be used intransitively (or, in this case I think, ergatively), just as you predicted.

Larry Latham

[metal56]

Larry replied:

I don't think so, M56. It certainly is the case that a grammatical object could go there, but I don't think it's mandatory...meaning that passivize can be used intransitively (or, in this case I think, ergatively), just as you predicted.

Thanks for checking that out for me, Larry. If there is any direct object to be identified in that dialogue it lies elsewhere in the dialogue, IMO. Some linguists feel that if the object/receiver of the action has already been mentioned, an intransitive construction can be used over a transitive one.

In my little dialogue, Teacher Dave, says "Theme for today is control objectives and how to make a generator passive." He names the object/receiver ("generator") of the planned action (passivisation). Therefore, it shouldn't be necessary for him to repeat that when he later says "The loop can passivize". He means, "The loop can passivize the generator".

Insisting on direct objects after such verbs like "passivize" should sometimes depend on discourse and not on intrasentential needs.

--

Whether the sentence I first posed is a normal intransitive or an ergative intransitive is still to be decided. I've been looking around and one thing I came up on was this (n.b. unaccusative is used as a synonym for ergative):

2. Argument Structure and English Grammar

2.1 Two types of Intransitive Verbs

Intransitive verbs take only one argument, which is realized as subject. But linguists have proposed that the intransitive verbs are not a homogeneous group, but there are mtwo types of intransitives since Perlmutter (1978). On the surface structure, however, they are not distinguished. Consider the following intransitive constructions:

(1) a. John worked.
b. Mary talked.

(2) a. The meat burned.
b. The temperature has fallen.

Thematically, the verbs in (1) take Agent, and those in (2) Theme. In terms of argument structure, the verbs in (1) takes external argument, those in (2) internal argument. The verbs in (1) are called unergative verbs and those in (2) unaccusative verbs. The following show the two groups of intransitive verbs:

(3) Unergative Verbs
work, fight, play, speak, talk, smile, grin, frown, swim, walk, lie, bark

(4) Unaccusative Verbs
burn, fall, drop, float, slide, slip, flow, drip, stumble, exist, happen, occur
However, it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between the two groups of intransitives in some cases. Consider the following examples of the verb ‘slide’:

(5) a. The wheels slid on the ice.
b. Joe slid into third base.
c. Joe slid on the ice.

Sentence (5a) is a clear case of unaccusative verb since the event described is not in volved with any intention. On the other hand, the sentences in (5b) and (5c) may describe willed actions. That is, the subject, ‘Joe’ can make himself get involved into the situation intentionally. Then, in the intended reading, the verbs seem to be unergat
ives.

http://pc171115.pc.waseda.ac.jp/ccdl/cl ... ndout1.pdf

[metal56]

According to some:

INTRANSITIVE can be either:

UNERGATIVE (has a SUBJECT and no OBJECT), or
ERGATIVE (has an OBJECT and no SUBJECT)

[LarryLatham]

Well, I'm confused but let me say at the outset that discussions of ergative verbs are right at the edge of my knowledge. I feel very shaky out here.

It was my impression, apparently mistaken, that ergative verbs had the property of involving the subject in the explicit or implied action, and usually no object. So that both "Mary smiled." and "The meat burned." look to me like ergatives. I do, however, see your distinction between internal and external arguments, and imagine that is significant, but this is the first time I've encountered that distinction.

Thanks for the lesson. I'll have to look into this more.

Larry Latham

[metal56]

Well, I'm confused but let me say at the outset that discussions of ergative verbs are right at the edge of my knowledge. I feel very shaky out here.

It was my impression, apparently mistaken, that ergative verbs had the property of involving the subject in the explicit or implied action, and usually no object. So that both "Mary smiled." and "The meat burned." look to me like ergatives. I do, however, see your distinction between internal and external arguments, and imagine that is significant, but this is the first time I've encountered that distinction.

Thanks for the lesson. I'll have to look into this more.

Larry Latham

No lesson really, Larry. I am also on floating islands in this area.

It was my impression, apparently mistaken, that ergative verbs had the property of involving the subject in the explicit or implied action, and usually no object.

Yes, they do do that. The object of the transitive sentence takes the syntactic spot of the subject in ergative-intransitive sentences. But Mary in "Mary smiled" has some volition and is clearly the instigator (internal instigation) of the action; in "The meat burned" the meat has no volition(external instigation), but can be seen as part instigator - even though here that would be a little ridiculous there.

In examples like, "Jesus died for our sins." a strong argument may be made for volition on the part of the protagonist - but why did he then cry "My God, why hast thou forsaken me"? - and/or for part-instigator. Is Jesus the first instigator there? Is it God (the third-participant/external instigator) in that event? Or maybe it is Pontius Pilot?

In examples like, " The leaf falls.", the verb acts upon the figure now, syntactically, in subject position. But, if it is acted upon, it must semantically be an object. The real instigator (3rd participant) lies outside the sentence, e.g. the wind, a drop of rain, a bird, etc.

Here's something I posted on another forum:

INTRANSITIVE can be either:

UNERGATIVE (has present a SUBJECT and no OBJECT), or
ERGATIVE (has present an OBJECT and no SUBJECT)

-*unergative (non-ergative): (the verbal object cannot become the verbal subject in an in transitive sentence and have the meaning of the verb preserved.)

*Poster was not me, but MNY on: forums.About.com.

[LarryLatham]

Here's something I posted on another forum:

How can you possibly have time for another forum? This one takes up way too much of my time, which is really to say, I enjoy it most of the time, but often feel guilty for all the time I spend with it. There are so many other things to do that don't get done as a result

Larry Latham

[metal56]

Here's something I posted on another forum:

How can you possibly have time for another forum? This one takes up way too much of my time, which is really to say, I enjoy it most of the time, but often feel guilty for all the time I spend with it. There are so many other things to do that don't get done as a result

Larry Latham

I agree, forumming can absorb you too much. It's just that I have been on the other forum for about three years now and the habit is hard to break. The atmosphere ther in not as nice as this one as there are quite a few traditionalists who are unwilling to look at things from a wider perspective. Strangely, they seem to be the favourites with students. We native-speaking, free- thinking, endlessly inquisitive types stand no nonsense from such grammarheads.



Even though this forum does take up a lot of your time, Larry, I do hope you stick around. I really enjoy reading your perspective on things.

[JuanTwoThree]

That'll teach me to bandy around terms I don't understand.

I think I'll stick with my nursery definition that "The chicken is cooking quickly" can be interpreted in two ways, depending on whether it is in the pot or stirring it.

[Andrew Patterson]

Now, I know that Basque is an ergative language, although I confess that I don't really know what that means. Everything that has been written here looks like what has traditionally been called "middle voice". Is "ergative" the new term for "middle voice", or am I missing sth here?