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Semantic Parameters of Split Intransitivity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Robert D. Van Valin Jr.
Robert D. Van Valin Jr.*
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
*
Linguistics Program, University of California Davis, CA 95616
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Abstract

Split intransitivity has been an important issue in syntactic theory since the postulation of the Unaccusative Hypothesis in Relational Grammar in Perlmutter 1978; it was adapted into Government-Binding theory in Burzio 1981. In both theories, a purely syntactic approach to split intransitivity is taken. This paper argues that split-intransitive phenomena are better explained in semantic terms. The semantic analysis will be carried out in Role and Reference Grammar, which assumes the theory of verb classification proposed in Dowty 1979. The analysis will focus on Italian, Georgian, and Acehnese, languages which have been cited as providing support for the UH. It will be shown that two semantic parameters, inherent lexical aspect (Aktionsart) and agentivity, underlie split intransitivity crosslinguistically.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 221 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 by Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper, entitled ‘The Unaccusative Hypothesis vs. lexical semantics: Syntactic vs. semantic approaches to verb classification’, was presented at the Seventeenth North Eastern Linguistic Society Meeting at MIT in November, 1986, and appeared in the proceedings. I would like to thank Joan Bresnan, Giulia Centineo, Mark Durie, Yoko Hasegawa, Dee Holisky, Jack Martin, Cathy O'Connor, Ivan Sag, Peter Sells, Jim Watters, David Wilkins, and Karl Zimmer for helpful and critical discussions of many of the issues raised herein and the anonymous referees for their critical comments and suggestions. This research was supported in part by a UC Davis Faculty Research Grant. Abbreviations used in the glosses are: aor ‘aorist’, dat ‘dative’, erg ‘ergative’, fut ‘future’, gen ‘genitive’, in ‘inchoative’, incep ‘inceptive’, loc ‘locative’, nom ‘nominative’, p/fut ‘present-future stem formant’, pass ‘passive’, pastpart ‘past participle’, pl/pl ‘plural’, refl ‘reflexive’, sg ‘singular’.

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