The Ergative Analysis and the Unaccusative Hypothesis

Abstract

A number of intransitive verbs, particularly those indicating movement or change of state and those that have a presentational type meaning, are associated with a cluster of properties across the Romance languages, the most important of which are:

• 1. Selection of a ‘be’ perfect auxiliary, together with subject-participle agreement: modern Italian Sono arrivate delle lettere ‘Some letters arrived’, Old Spanish Salidos son de Valençia ‘They have left Valencia’ (Cid 1821).

• 2. Compatibility with absolute past participle constructions: Spanish Llegados los niños… ‘Once the children had arrived…’, Italian Ritornati i Borboni sul trono di Napoli… ‘With the Bourbons returned to the Naples throne…’

• 3. Compatibility with overt expletives in subject position: French Il est paru une nouvelle edition ‘A new edition has just come out’.

• 4. Compatibility with partitive cliticization from the subject: Italian Ne occorreranno molti di più ‘Many more of them will be needed’, Catalan Va morir-ne un en accident ‘One of them died in an accident’.

• 5. Compatibility with postverbal bare subjects (in those languages that allow them): Spanish Entraban hormigas en la tienda ‘Ants were getting into the tent’, Italian Usciva fumo dal motore ‘Smoke was coming from the engine’.