A Study of Inanimate Unergatives

This paper reassesses the syntactic and semantic analysis of unergative verbs with inanimate subjects. Two main problems are present: First, what component of meaning predicts their unergativity? Contra Reinhart 2002, this paper argues that inanimate unergatives involve a causal implication, hence their subject merges externally without further ado. Second, a subset of inanimate unergatives exhibits transitive alternates (e.g. The doorbell buzzed / The postman buzzed the doorbell). How is the alternation formed? This paper shows that the process involved here is a productive, non-derivational pattern, which has been independently attested.

Joseph Potashnik is a PhD student in linguistics at Tel Aviv University. He is a senior software engineer and worked in pioneering high-tech companies. He has B.Sc. in computer sciences and physics, and M.A. degree in linguistics (summa cum laude) from Tel Aviv University.