In languages like German or Dutch, the distinction between unergative and unaccusative verbs is borne out by a number of syntactic tests. Unergative verbs appear in impersonal passives while unaccusative verbs do not (cf. Perlmutter (1978)). Unergative verbs select the perfect auxiliary haben/hebben (to have) while unaccusative verbs select sein/zijn (to be) (cf. Hoekstra (1984)). Unaccusative ...

The unaccusative hypothesis of Perlmutter (1978) andBurzio (1981,1986) claims that intransitive verbs are not homogeneous; rather, they are divided into two classes: unergative and unaccusative. This paper argues that the unaccusative hypothesis can be extended to the category of noun. Evidence supporting this claim comes from the resultative construction and accusative-case assignment in Japan...

English unaccusative verbs pose great difficulties to second language learners. The distinction between non-alternating and alternating unaccusative verbs makes the learning task even more difficult. This study conducts a contrastive study of how Chinese learners acquire these two types of verbs in terms of acquisition sequence, acquisition problem and developmental patterns. It finds that non-...

The Unaccusative Hypothesis (UH) predicts that the subject of an unaccusative is mentally reactivated in the object position. Previous psycholinguistic studies have reported evidence of reactivation (Friedmann et al 2008, Koring et al 2012). However, these studies did not equate the unaccusative and unergative stimuli, resulting in confounds which jeopardize their conclusions. We reexamined UH ...

This study focuses on the neural processing of English sentences containing unergative, unaccusative and transitive verbs. We demonstrate common responses in bilateral superior temporal gyri in response to listening to sentences containing unaccusative and transitive verbs compared to unergative verbs; we did not detect any activation that was specific to unaccusatives. Our findings indicate th...

Previous studies have found a processing difference between unaccusative sentences and unergative sentences. They argued that the difference is derived from a syntactic difference, i.e. an unaccusative sentence involves movement whereas an unergative sentence does not. In this study, we are going to show that those studies are uninterpretable due to uncontrolled stimuli and confounds in the mat...

According to the Unaccusative Hypothesis, unaccusative subjects are base-generated in object position and move to subject position. We examined this hypothesis using the cross-modal lexical priming technique, which tests whether and when an antecedent is reactivated during the online processing of a sentence. We compared sentences containing unergative verbs with sentences containing unaccusati...

Bastiaanse, Koekkoek And Van Zonneveld (2003) hypothesized that individuals with Broca’s aphasia have problems with sentences in which the verb and its arguments are not in their base position. The present study is meant to test this hypothesis with the help of verbs with alternating transitivity: transitive: the boy breaks the glass; intransitive or unaccusative: the glass breaks. Superficiall...

Unaccusative verbs like fall are special in that their sole argument is syntactically generated at the object position of the verb rather than at the subject position. Unaccusative verbs are derived by a lexical operation that reduces the agent from transitive verbs. Their insertion into a sentence often involves a syntactic movement from the object to the subject position. To explore the neuro...

This paper investigates subject-verb placement for unaccusative and unergative verbs in Spanish, focusing on syntactic, pragmatic, sociolinguistic factors that predict placement. The study aims to answer three questions: (1) Does the unergative/unaccusative divide influence SV/VS order acceptability?, (2) What are dialectal differences subject acceptability Spanish?, (3) sentence context affect...