The Unaccusativity Puzzle: Explorations of the Syntax-Lexicon Interface (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics, 5)

The phenomenon of unaccusativity is a central focus for the study of the complex properties of verb classes. The Unaccusative Hypothesis has provided a rich context for debating whether syntactic behavior is semantically or lexically determined, the consequence of syntactic context, or a combination of these factors. No consensus has been reached. This book combines new approaches to the subject with several papers that have achieved a significant status, though formally unpublished. The Phenomenon Of Unaccusativity Is A Central Focus For The Study Of The Complex Properties Of Verb Classes. This Book Combines Contemporary Approaches To The Subject With Several Papers That Have Achieved A Significant Status Even Though Formally Unpublished. Introduction / Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou And Martin Everaert -- 1. A Semantics For Unaccusatives And Its Syntactic Consequences / Gennaro Chierchia -- 2. Unaccusativity As Telicity Checking / Angeliek Van Hout -- 3. Unergative Adjectives And Psych Verbs / Hans Bennis -- 4. Voice Morphology In The Causative-inchoative Alternation: Evidence For A Non-unified Structural Analysis Of Unaccusations / Artemis Alexiadou And Elena Anagnostopoulou -- 5. Unaccusative Syntax And Verbal Alternations / David Embick -- 6. Against An Unaccusative Analysis Of Reflexives / Tanya Reinhart And Tal Siloni -- 7. Unaccusatives And Anticausatives In German / Markus Steinbach -- 8. Syntactic Unaccusativity In Russian / Maaike Schoorlemmer. Edited By Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou, And Martin Everaert. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Title ......Page 2 Contents ......Page 6 General Preface ......Page 8 Abbreviations ......Page 9 Contributors ......Page 11 Introduction ......Page 12 1. A Semantics for Unaccusatives and its Syntactic Consequences......Page 33 2. Unaccusativity as Telicity Checking ......Page 71 3. Unergative Adjectives and Psych Verbs......Page 95 4. Voice Morphology in the Causative-Inchoative Alternation: Evidence for a Non-Unified Structural Analysis of Unaccusatives ......Page 125 5. Unaccusative Syntax and Verbal Alternations ......Page 148 6. Against the Unaccusative Analysis of Reflexives ......Page 170 7. Unaccusatives and Anticausatives in German ......Page 192 8. Syntactic Unaccusativity in Russian ......Page 218 9. Gradience at the Lexicon-Syntax Interface: Evidence from Auxiliary Selection and Implications for Unaccusativity ......Page 254 10. Unaccusativity in Saramaccan: The Syntax of Resultatives ......Page 280 11. The Grammar Machine ......Page 299 12. Acquiring Unaccusativity: A Cross-Linguistic look ......Page 343 References ......Page 366 Index ......Page 382 Since its original formulation, due in its current form to Perlmutter (1978), the unaccusative hypothesis has played a major role in linguistic theory, as it raises fundamental questions on the nature of grammatical relations and on the syntax-semantics map.