Re: Unaccusative vs unergative ...

Andreas Johansson wrote:


>  So  "to dance" would be an unergative, since in "Jane dances" it's
> Jane(=the subject) that does the dancing,
That reminds me, I've been wanting to ask:  in "Jane danced the rhumba",
what is the role of "the rhumba"?  This role, whatever it is,
is in some way tied with so-called "cognate accusatives", as in
"to dance a dance", "to sing a song", and "to walk the walk".

> while "to fall" is unaccusative, since in
> "Jane falls" it was somebody/-thing that felled her.
While "fall" is historically the resultative of "fell", this is
no longer strictly true; stones fall from heaven (contrary to
Thomas Jefferson's view: "I had rather believe that two Yankee
professors would lie, than that stones should fall from heaven"),
but nobody actually fells them.


                Henry Squirrel was thirsty. He
                walked over to the river bank
                where his good friend Bill Bird
                was sitting. Henry slipped and
                fell in the river. Gravity drowned.
                        --TALE-SPIN Story Generator,
                          James Meehan, Yale AI Lab, 1975.

Why?  It was gravity that pulled Henry into the river, and since
Gravity has neither arms nor legs nor a friend to pull him out,
he inevitably must drown.  (Hi, Nick!)

--
There is / one art             || John Cowan <jcowan@...>
no more / no less              || http://www.reutershealth.com
to do / all things             || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
with art- / lessness           \\ -- Piet Hein

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