Ergative verb

Ergative verb
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.

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. By contrast, with an ergative verb the role of the subject changes; consider "it broke the
window" (transitive) and "the window broke" (intransitive).
Ergative verbs can be divided into several categories:

Verbs suggesting a change of state break, burst, form, heal, melt, tear, transform
Verbs of cooking bake, boil, cook, fry
Verbs of movement move, shake, sweep, turn, walk
Verbs involving vehicles drive, fly, reverse, run, 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", although it obviously gives more information than either.
Unlike a passive verb, a nominalization, an infinitive, or a gerund, 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."
"[] to break the window []" or "[] for the burglar to break the window []"
"[] 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."
"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.
A particularly odd English ergative verb is "graduate": "he graduated from school" and "school graduated him" mean
the same thing, although the latter usage has passed out of vogue, and one meets with occasional criticism of the
intransitive form.[1] With the latter usage, the verb is transitive, but with the former, the verb is intransitive.
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."

Ergative verb

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 tte." ("He turns his head.")
"Sa tte tourne." ("His head turns.")
More common is the use of the reflexive form of the verb to express the anticausative meaning.
"J'ouvre la porte." ("I open the door.")
"La porte s'ouvre." ("The door opens itself", i.e. "The door 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 ptes." ("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 ptes." (lit., "I make cook the pasta", i.e. "I make the pasta cook", i.e. "I cook the pasta.")
"Les ptes cuisent." ("The pasta cooks.")

In Dutch
In Dutch, ergative verbs are used in a way similar to English, but they stand out as more distinct particularly in the
perfect tenses.
In the present, the usage in both languages is similar, 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) cannot be used
transitively, nor the verb openen (to open) intransitively:
"Het schip zonk." ("The ship sank.")
Not *"De marine zonk het schip." (Unlike "The navy sank the ship.")
and
"Jan opent de deur." ("John opens the door.")
Not *"De deur opent." (Unlike "The door opens.")
In this last case, one could say: "De deur gaat open." (lit. The door goes open").
A difference between Dutch and English is that typically the perfect tenses of infinitives take zijn (to be) as their
auxiliary rather than hebben (to have), and this extends to these verbs as well.
present: "Het glas breekt." ("The glass breaks.")
perfect: "Het glas is gebroken." ("The glass has broken.")

Ergative verb

Perfect ergative innocence

Ergatives are verbs of innocence, because they imply the absence of an actor who could possibly be blamed. This
association is quite strong in Dutch and speakers tend to treat verbs like forgetting and losing as ergatives in the
perfect tenses even though they typically have a direct object and are really transitive verbs. It is not unusual to hear
sentences like:
Ik ben mijn boek vergeten. - I forgot my book (and it just 'happened to me: there is no actor).
Ik ben mijn geld verloren. - I lost my money (poor me).
Something similar happens with compound verbs like gewaarworden: to become aware of something. It is a
separable compound of worden (become), which is a typical 'process'-verb. It is usually considered a copula, rather
than an ergative, but these two group of verbs are related. For example, copulas usually take to be in the perfect as
well. A verb like blijven is used both as a copula and as an ergative and all its compounds (nablijven, bijblijven,
aanblijven etc.) are ergatives.
Gewaarworden can take two objects a reflexive indirect one and one that could be called a causative object. In many
languages causative object would take a case like the genitive, but in Dutch this is no longer the case:
Ik werd me dat gewaar - I became aware of that.
The perfect usually takes to be regardless of the objects:
Ik ben me dat niet gewaargeworden. - (roughly) I did not catch on to that.

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. For example, the verbs [ ava] (active) and [ niba] (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 [ laavo] (active) and [ lhaavi] (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")

References
[1] Entry graduate Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster. 1994. p.483.
ISBN0-87779-132-5.

External links
Ideas for Teaching Ergative Verbs to ESL Students (http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Chan-ErgativeVerbs.html)
Wiktionary's "English ergative verbs" category

Article Sources and Contributors

Article Sources and Contributors

Ergative verb Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=461824708 Contributors: Amire80, Andrea moro, AxelBoldt, Bit, BrainMagMo, Chris the speller, Circeus, Furrykef, Jcwf,
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