Unaccusativity in Dutch: Integrating Syntax and Lexical Semantics

Thematic Roles and Syntactic Structure

“…Given the logic of this situation, it is natural to ask whether one can cut out the middleman by stating the relevant conditions directly in terms of the meaning of the clause. This line of argument is developed by Zaenen (1993) for Dutch, andVan Valin (1987, 1990) for Italian. If it is successful, then the unergative-unaccusative distinction might not support the UTAH after all.…”

Recent activity in the theory of aspect: Accomplishments, achievements, or just non-progressive state?

“…"unaccusatives" differ from "unergatives" in their aspectual behavior, cf. Sanfilippo 1991, Zaenen 1993, Tenny 1994, Abraham 1996, and many others).…”

Gradient auxiliary selection and impersonal passivization in German: an experimental investigation

“…In particular, the VP-internal hypothesis (Koopman & Sportiche 1991, among others) has led to the obliteration of the distinction between internal and external arguments: as the single arguments of unaccusative and unergative verbs are both generated within the VP domain, the structural representation of the distinction is given at the level of different functional (or semi-functional) heads to which each argument moves. These theoretical refinements appear to question the validity of those diagnostics, such as ne cliticization in Italian or impersonal passivization, which previously depended on the characterization of arguments as internal or external: indeed, it has been shown that these constructions can allow both unaccusative and unergative verbs (although not to the same extent), depending on semantic factors such as the mutual predictability between a verb and its argument (Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1995, Lonzi 1985 or volitional control (Zaenen 1993). …”

“…In addition, these verbs, being normally unaccusative, do not satisfy the syntactic requirement for passivization, i.e., the presence of an external argument. However, Zaenen (1993) points out that impersonal passives in Dutch are also sensitive to aspectual differences and tend to be more felicitous when the situation described by the predicate is atelic. If the degrees of telicity 11 expressed by the hierarchy are taken into account, then it is plausible to expect variation in degree of unacceptability (rather than acceptability) of impersonal passives with these verbs.…”