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Unaccusative verbs are generally more readily identifiable in ergative-absolutive languages, such as Basque, since the subject of unaccusative verbs is inflected similarly to direct objects. [ 17 ] By contrast, nominative-accusative languages , such as Japanese mark the subject of unaccusative verbs agentively.
Labile verbs can also be called "S=O-ambitransitive" (following R. M. W. Dixon's usage), or "ergative", [6] following Lyons's influential textbook from 1968. [7] However, the term "ergative verb" has also been used for unaccusative verbs, [8] and in most other contexts, it is used for ergative constructions.
The animacy of the subject, with more animate subjects more likely to be marked ergative; The semantics of the verb, with more active or transitive verbs more likely to be marked ergative; The grammatical structure or [tense-aspect-mood] Languages from Australia, New Guinea and Tibet have been shown to have optional ergativity. [11]
Some languages treat unergative verbs differently from other intransitives in morphosyntactic terms. For example, in some Romance languages, such verbs use different auxiliaries when in compound tenses. Besides the above, unergative verbs differ from unaccusative verbs in that in some languages, they can occasionally use the passive voice.
Subjects of unaccusative verbs bear a theta role that is common to objects, which leads to the hypothesis that in the d-structure the Determiner Phrase subject occupies the object position in the syntactic tree. The following is a theta grid for the Ergative verb fall, which has the argument structure V[DP___]: Fall
Ergative–absolutive languages can detransitivize transitive verbs by demoting the O and promoting the A to an S, thus taking the absolutive case, called the antipassive voice. About a sixth of the world's languages have ergative alignment. The best known are probably the Inuit languages and Basque.
In linguistic typology, tripartite alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the main argument ('subject') of an intransitive verb, the agent argument ('subject') of a transitive verb, and the patient argument ('direct object') of a transitive verb are each treated distinctly in the grammatical system of a language. [1]
So why not categorize a verb that has a patientive subject as an ‘ergative verb’. (see ‘intransitive variants of unaccusative verbs’ down below) ergative vs. unaccusative verb-> ergative means it is definitely not accusative, however unaccusative does NOT necessarily mean that it is ergative - it’s just not accusative!!!