In linguistics, an ergative verb is a verb that can be either transitive or intransitive, and whose subject when intransitive corresponds to its direct object when transitive. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. In Syntax, a transitive verb is a Verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs In Grammar, an intransitive Verb does not take an object. In more technical terms an intransitive verb has only one argument (its subject According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the An object in Grammar is a Sentence element and part of the sentence predicate.

Contents 1 In English 2 In French 3 In Dutch 4 In Hebrew 5 See also 6 External links

In English

In English, most verbs can be used intransitively, but ordinarily this does not change the role of the subject; consider, for example, "He ate the soup" (transitive) and "He ate" (intransitive), where the only difference is that the latter does not specify what was eaten. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States By contrast, with an ergative verb the role of the subject changes; consider "He broke the window" (transitive) and "He broke" (intransitive), where "he" is the agent in the first sentence and the patient in the second. In Linguistics, a grammatical agent is the Participant of a situation that carries out the action in this situation In Linguistics, a grammatical patient is the participant of a situation upon whom an action is carried out Indeed, "He broke the window" is more closely synonymous with "The window broke", where the direct object in the transitive version has become the subject in the intransitive version.

Ergative verbs can be divided into several categories:

• Verbs suggesting a change of state — break, burst, melt, tear
• Verbs of cooking — bake, boil, cook, fry
• Verbs of movement — move, shake, sweep, turn
• Verbs involving vehicles — drive, fly, reverse, sail

Some of these can be used intransitively in either sense: "I'm cooking the pasta" is fairly synonymous with both "The pasta is cooking" (as an ergative verb) and "I'm cooking" (not), though obviously it gives more information than either.

Unlike a nominalized verb or a verb in the passive voice, which would allow the agent to be deleted but would also allow it to be included, the intransitive version of an ergative verb requires the agent to be deleted:

• "The window was broken" or "The window was broken by the burglar. In Linguistics, nominalization refers to the use of a Verb or an Adjective as a Noun, with or without morphological transformation In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified "
• "[…] the breaking of the window […]" or "[…] the breaking of the window by the burglar […]"
• "The window broke" but not *"The window broke by the burglar. "

Indeed, the intransitive form of an ergative verb almost suggests that there is no agent. With some non-ergative verbs, this can be achieved using the reflexive voice:

• "He solved the problem. In Grammar, a reflexive verb is a Verb whose semantic agent and patient (typically represented syntactically by the subject and the direct object are the "
• "The problem was solved" or "The problem was solved by him. "
• "The problem solved itself" but not *"The problem solved itself by him. "

In this case, however, the use of the reflexive voice strongly indicates the lack of an agent; where ?"John broke the window, or maybe Jack did — at any rate, the window broke" is understandable, if slightly unidiomatic, *"John solved the problem, or maybe Jack did — at any rate, the problem solved itself" is completely self-contradictory. Nonetheless, some grammarians would consider both "The window broke" and "The problem solved itself" to be examples of a distinct voice, the middle voice. In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified

A particularly odd English ergative verb is "graduate": "he graduated school" and "school graduated him" mean the same thing, although the latter usage has passed out of vogue. With the latter usage, the verb is ergative, but with the former, the verb is nonergative.

In French

English is not the only language with ergative verbs; indeed, they are a feature of many languages. French is another language that has them:

• "Il tourne la tête. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people " ("He turns his head. ")
• "Sa tête tourne. " ("His head turns. ")

Some ergative verbs can also be used reflexively — that is, the approaches of both English break and English solve are available, depending on the situation:

• "J'ouvre la porte. " ("I open the door. ")
• "La porte s'ouvre. " ("The door opens itself", i. e. "The door opens. ")
• "Le parc ouvre. " ("The park opens. ")

Further, verbs analogous to English cook have even more possibities, even allowing a causative construction to substitute for the transitive form of the verb:

• "Je cuis les pâtes. A causative form in Linguistics, is an expression of an agent causing or forcing a patient to perform an action (or to be in a certain condition " ("I cook the pasta. ")
• "Je cuis. " ("I cook", i. e. either "I cook [something]" or e. g. "It's so hot in here, I'm practically roasting. ")
• "Je fais cuire les pâtes. " (lit. , "I make cook the pasta", i. e. "I make the pasta cook", i. e. "I cook the pasta. ")
• "Les pâtes cuisent. " ("The pasta cooks. ")

In Dutch

In Dutch, ergative verbs are used in a way similar to English. Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname For example:

• "Jan breekt zijn glas. " ("John breaks his glass. ")
• "Het glas breekt. " ("The glass breaks. ")

However, there are cases where the two languages deviate. For example, the verb zinken (to sink) can not be used transitively:

• "Het schip zonk. " ("The ship sank. ")
• Not *"De marine zonk het schip. " (Unlike "The navy sank the ship. ")

The significance of the ergative verb is that it enables a writer or speaker not only to suppress the identity of the outside agent responsible for the particular process, but also to represent the affected party as in some way causing the action by which it is affected. It can be used by journalists sympathetic to a particular causative agent and wishing to avoid assigning blame, as in "Eight factories have closed this year. "

In Hebrew

Hebrew does have a few ergative verbs, due in part to calques from other languages; nonetheless, it has fewer ergative verbs than English, in part because it has a fairly productive causative construction and partly-distinct mediopassive constructions. In Linguistics, a calque (kælk or loan translation is a Word or Phrase borrowed from another Language by Literal, word-for-word A causative form in Linguistics, is an expression of an agent causing or forcing a patient to perform an action (or to be in a certain condition The mediopassive voice is a Grammatical voice which subsumes the meanings of both the Middle voice and the Passive voice. For example, the verbs [ʃa'vaʁ] (active) and [niʃ'baʁ] (its mediopassive counterpart) both mean to break, but the former is transitive (as in "He broke the window") and the latter is intransitive (as in "The window broke"). Similarly, the verbs [laa'voʁ] (active) and [ləha'viʁ] (its causative counterpart) both mean to pass, but the former is intransitive (as in "He passed by Susan") and the latter is transitive (as in "He passed the salt to Susan")

See also

• Ergative case
• Ergative-absolutive language
• Ergative-accusative language
• Unaccusative verb
• Unergative verb
• Accusative verb
• Ambitransitive verb

External links

• Wiktionary's "English ergative verbs" category

The ergative case is the Grammatical case that identifies the subject of a Transitive verb in Ergative-absolutive languages In such languages An ergative-absolutive Language (or simply ergative language is a language that treats the argument (" subject " of an Intransitive A tripartite language, also called an ergative-accusative language, is one that treats the subject of an intransitive verb the subject of a transitive verb and the object In Linguistics, an unaccusative verb is an Intransitive verb whose ( syntactic) subject is not a ( semantic) agent; that An unergative verb is an Intransitive verb distinguished semantically by having an agent subject. An accusative verb is a verb that can be used transitively or intransitively, with the subject of the transitive verb becoming the argument of An ambitransitive verb is a Verb that can be used both as intransitive or as transitive without requiring a morphological change

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