In
general linguistics
Theoretical linguistics is a term in linguistics which, like the related term general linguistics, can be understood in different ways. Both can be taken as a reference to theory of language, or the branch of linguistics which inquires into the n ...
, a labile verb (or ergative verb) is a verb that undergoes
causative alternation; it can be used both
transitively and
intransitively, with the requirement that the
direct object
In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
of its transitive use corresponds to the
subject of its intransitive use, as in "I ring the bell" and "The bell rings." Labile verbs are a prominent feature of English, but they also occur in many other languages.
Terminology
The terminology in general linguistics is not stable yet. Labile verbs can also be called "S=O-
ambitransitive" (following
R.M.W. Dixon's usage), or "ergative", following
Lyons's influential textbook from 1968. However, the term "ergative verb" has also been used for
unaccusative verb In linguistics, an unaccusative verb is an intransitive verb whose grammatical subject is not a semantic agent. In other words, the subject does not actively initiate, or is not actively responsible for, the action expressed by the verb. An unaccus ...
s,
[Keyser, Samuel Jay & Thomas Roeper. 1984. On the middle and ergative constructions in English. Linguistic Inquiry 15(3). 381–416.] and in most other contexts, it is used for
ergative constructions.
In English
Most English 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 a labile verb the role of the subject changes; consider "it broke the window" (transitive) and "the window broke" (intransitive).
Labile 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 similar to both "The pasta is cooking" (as an ergative verb) and "I'm cooking", although it is clearly more informative than either.
Unlike a
passive verb
A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...
, a
nominalization, an
infinitive
Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...
, or a
gerund
In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiab ...
, which allow the agent to be either excluded or included, the intransitive form of a labile verb normally requires the agent to be excluded:
* "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 burglar's breaking of the window
€¦
* "The window broke" but not "The window broke by the burglar."
The intransitive form of a labile verb can suggest that there is no agent. With some non-labile verbs, this can be achieved using the
reflexive voice
In grammar, a reflexive verb is, loosely, a verb whose direct object is the same as its subject; for example, "I wash myself". More generally, a reflexive verb has the same semantic agent and patient (typically represented syntactically by the s ...
: ''He solved the problem'' becomes ''The problem was solved'' or ''The problem solved itself''.
The first use of the reflexive voice can indicate the lack of an agent, but it can also be used when a specific agent is unknown. For example, the phrases "John broke the window, or maybe Jack did — at any rate, the window broke" and "John solved the problem, or maybe Jack did — at any rate, the problem was solved" both have quite naturally understandable meanings, though they are slightly idiomatic.
The second use of the reflexive voice indicates that the subject of the sentence is the causative agent; the phrase "John solved the problem, or maybe Jack did — at any rate, the problem solved itself" is literally self-contradictory, though idiomatic usage does not always follow this prescription. Accordingly, some grammarians would consider both "The window broke" and "The problem solved itself" to be examples of a distinct
voice
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...
, the middle voice.
The labile verb enables not only the omission of the outside agent, but also the implication that the affected party is somehow causing the action. This can be done neutrally when the affected party can be considered an institution or corporate entity and the individual member responsible for the action is unimportant, for example "the shop closed for the day". It can also avoid assigning blame when journalists are sympathetic to a particular causative agent, as in "Eight factories have closed this year."
In Norwegian
The labile verbs in
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
have one conjugation pattern for the transitive form and another for the intransitive form:
* «Nøtta knakk» (The nut cracked)
* «Jeg knekte nøtta» (I cracked the nut)
In French
French is another language that has them, developed from lack of distinguished sense in Gallo-Roman
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
:
*"Il tourne la tête." ("He turns his head.")
*"Sa tête tourne." ("His head turns.")
However, note that the use of the
reflexive form of the verb to express the
anticausative
An anticausative verb ( abbreviated ) is an intransitive verb that shows an event affecting its subject, while giving no semantic or syntactic indication of the cause of the event. The single argument of the anticausative verb (its subject) is a ...
meaning is more common.
*"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 possibilities, even allowing a
causative construction to substitute for the transitive form of the verb:
*"Je cuis les pâtes." ("I cook the pasta.")
*"Je cuis." ("I cook", i.e. either "I cook
omething 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
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, labile 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"), while the former would be stated as "De marine liet het schip zinken." (lit. "The navy let the ship sink").
A difference between Dutch and English is that typically the perfect tenses of intransitives take ''zijn'' (to be) as their auxiliary rather than ''hebben'' (to have), and this extends to these verbs as well.
*''present'':
** "Hij breekt het glas." ("He breaks the glass")
** "Het glas breekt." ("The glass breaks.")
*''perfect'':
** "Hij heeft het glas gebroken" ("He has broken the glass.")
** "Het glas is gebroken." ("The glass has broken." ''or'' "The glass is broken.")
Perfect labile innocence
Labiles 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 such as ''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 such as:
: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 such as ''gewaarworden'' ('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 such as ''blijven'' ('stay') is used both as a copula and as an ergative and all its compounds (''nablijven'' ('stay behind'), ''bijblijven'' ('keep up'), ''aanblijven'' ('stay on') etc.) are ergatives.
''Gewaarworden'' can take two objects, a reflexive indirect one and one that could be called a ''causative object''. In many languages the causative object would take a case such as 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
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
does have a few labile verbs, due in part to
calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...
s from other languages; nonetheless, it has fewer labile verbs than English, in part because it has a fairly productive
causative construction and partly distinct
mediopassive
The mediopassive voice is a grammatical voice that subsumes the meanings of both the middle voice and the passive voice.
Description
Languages of the Indo-European family (and many others) typically have two or three of the following voices: acti ...
constructions. For example, the verbs (active) and (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 (active) and (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
*
Ambitransitive verb An ambitransitive verb is a verb that is both intransitive and transitive.Dixon, R.M.W. & Aikhenvald, Alexendra Y. Changing Valency: Case Studies in Transitivity. Cambridge University Press. This verb may or may not require a direct object. Englis ...
*
Unaccusative verb In linguistics, an unaccusative verb is an intransitive verb whose grammatical subject is not a semantic agent. In other words, the subject does not actively initiate, or is not actively responsible for, the action expressed by the verb. An unaccus ...
*
Unergative verb
An unergative verb is an intransitive verb that is characterized semantically by having a subject argument which is an ''agent'' that actively initiates the action expressed by the verb.
For example, in English, ''talk'' and ''resign'' in the se ...
References
External links
Ideas for Teaching Ergative Verbs to ESL Students*
Wiktionary's "English ergative verbs" category
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ergative Verb
Transitivity and valency