ERGATIVITY IN ENGLISH AND ROMANCE

Ergativity or unaccusativity is a syntactic theory which proposes the existence of two classes of intransitive verbs, namely unergatives and unaccusatives. These two classes of verbs are each associated with a different deep structure, defined by the type of surface subject these verbs select. Unergatives select a deep subject, while unaccusatives select a subject generated as deep object. Thus, unergatives select a subject theta-marked as external argument and they do not have an internal argument, while unaccusatives subcategorize for a deep object, therefore they do not have an external argument, they only have an internal argument.