Verbe ergatif

In general linguistics, 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 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. 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 verbs, and in most other contexts, it is used for ergative constructions. 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 nominalization, an infinitive, or a gerund, 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 [.

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Concepts associés (11)

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 unaccusative verb's subject is semantically similar to the direct object of a transitive verb or to the subject of a verb in the passive voice. Examples in English are "the tree fell"; "the window broke".

Langue ergative

En grammaire et en typologie des langues, une langue ergative, ou plus précisément une langue à structure d'actance de type absolutif-ergatif, est une langue dont la grammaire comporte une opposition fondamentale entre deux fonctions syntaxiques qui correspondent d'une part au sujet d'un verbe transitif, d'autre part à l'objet d'un tel verbe, confondu avec le sujet d'un verbe intransitif. Dans les langues ergatives à déclinaison, la première fonction est indiquée par le cas ergatif, la seconde par l'absolutif, généralement non marqué.

Ambitransitive verb

An ambitransitive verb is a verb that is both intransitive and transitive. This verb may or may not require a direct object. English has many ambitransitive verbs. Examples include read, break, and understand (e.g., "I read the book", saying what was read, or just "I read all afternoon"). Ambitransitive verbs are common in some languages, and much less so in other languages, where valency tends to be fixed, and there are explicit valency-changing operations (such as passive voice, antipassive voice, applicatives, causatives, etc.