Ergativityc in English, Dutch and German: a Corpus-Based, Contrastive Study of Deadjectival Verbs

Universiteit Gent Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte Academiejaar 2012-2013

Ergativityc in English, Dutch and German: A corpus-based, contrastive study of deadjectival verbs

Masterproef voorgelegd tot het bekomen van de graad van Master in de Taal- en Letterkunde: Twee talen

Evi De Groote

Promotor: Prof. Dr. Miriam Taverniers

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to many people who have supported me during the past years. First of all, I want to thank my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Miriam Taverniers for her useful advice and for the confidence she has shown in this study. I am also grateful to Dr. Julie Van Bogaert for proof-reading parts of this work. A special thanks goes to Charlotte De Kuysscher, for her moral support and for the entertaining conversations. Finally, I want to thank my family and my friends for their kindness and support throughout my study.

Table of contents

Acknowledgement ...... 3 Table of contents ...... 4 List of tables ...... 7 List of figures ...... 7 1 Introduction ...... 9 2 Literature Review ...... 11 2.1 The complexity of a definition ...... 11 2.2 “Ergativity” representing different phenomena...... 12

2.3 Different approaches towards (lexical) ergativityc ...... 13

2.4 Ergativityc as a type of valence reduction ...... 16

2.5 Contrastive study of ergativityc ...... 18 2.5.1 General ...... 18 2.5.2 Contrastive approaches so far...... 22

2.5.3 Ergativityc in English ...... 28 2.5.3.1 Causativizing affixes ...... 28 2.5.3.2 Causative constructions ...... 31

2.5.4 Ergativityc in Dutch ...... 36 2.5.4.1 General ...... 36 2.5.4.2 Verbs with prefix ver- ...... 36 2.5.4.3 Reflexive verbs ...... 37 2.5.4.4 Periphrastic construction with doen/laten ...... 39

2.5.5 Ergativityc in German ...... 40 2.5.5.1 General ...... 40 2.5.5.2 Verbs with prefix ver- ...... 41 2.5.5.3 Reflexive verbs ...... 42 2.5.5.4 Periphrastic construction with lassen ...... 43 3 Methodology ...... 44 4 Analysis and discussion ...... 50 4.1 Dutch translation strategies ...... 50 4.1.1 General ...... 50 4.1.2 Prefixed verbs ...... 50 4.1.3 Attributive construction ...... 53

4.1.4 Ergativec verbs...... 55 4.1.5 Deadjectival verbs ...... 56 4.1.6 Reflexive verbs ...... 57 4.1.7 Other constructions ...... 57 4.2 German translation strategies ...... 59 4.2.1 General ...... 59 4.2.2 Prefixed verbs ...... 60 4.2.3 Attributive construction ...... 62

4.2.4 Ergativec verbs...... 64 4.2.5 Deadjectival verbs ...... 65 4.2.6 Reflexive verbs ...... 66 4.2.7 Other constructions ...... 69 4.3 Discussion and conclusion ...... 69 5 Diachronic excursion ...... 74 5.1 General ...... 74 5.2 Hypothesis ...... 76 6 Conclusion ...... 81 Appendix 1: Dutch primary data ...... 83 Appendix 2: German primary data ...... 87 Appendix 3: Dutch results ...... 89 Appendix 4: German results ...... 94 References ...... 97

List of tables

Table 1. Terminology Table 2. Formal linguistic devices to express causation in Modern English (Baron 1974: 302, 1) Table 3. Comparison of Dutch and German strategies Table 4. A selection of features in Modern English and Modern German (Toyota 2008: 285) Table 5. A selection of features in Old English and Old High German (Toyota 2008: 285)

List of figures

Figure 1. Representation of Dutch translations Figure 2. Distribution of prefixes in Dutch Figure 3. Distribution of comparatives in Dutch

Figure 4. Ergativec verbs in Dutch Figure 5. Periphrastic constructions in Dutch Figure 6. Representation of German translations Figure 7. Distribution of prefixes in German Figure 8. Distribution of comparatives in German

1 Introduction

Ergativityc is said to be a well-studied and “widely recognized phenomenon” in linguistics (Horvath & Siloni 2011:2176). This linguistic phenomenon is illustrated by pairs such as (1) and (2).

(1) a. The man breaks the vase. b. The vase breaks. (2) a. Smoke darkens the sky. b. The sky darkens.

Many linguists take into account both syntactic and semantic features to characterize the ergativec alternation (Legendre et al. 1991, Levin & Hovav 1995, Zaenen 1993). In order to define the ergativec alternation syntactically, the position of the object is crucial: the object in the two-participant construction [henceforth ERG2] in (1)a and (2)a moves to subject position in the one-participant construction [henceforth ERG1] in (1)b and (2)b.

Davidse defines the ergativec alternation semantically and differentiates between ERG1 and

ERG2 on the basis of the feature instigatable. ERG1 potentially possesses this feature, whereas ERG2 is always “externally instigated” (Davidse 1998: 99).

So far, different linguistic traditions have been concerned with positioning ergativityc within the grammar of a language and with defining the crucial characteristics of ergativityc in a given language. However, Davidse states that no consensus between different linguistic schools has been reached, because of an “almost total lack of dialogue between [...] schools” (Davidse 1998: 95). Hovav later confirmed this claim by Davidse and adds that not all linguists refer to the same phenomena when using the terms

“unaccusative” [ergativec] and “unergative” [transitivec] verbs (Hovav 2005: 623).

Although some domains of ergativityc are well-studied, the title of a research by Alexiadou et al., formulated as ‘The Unaccusativity Puzzle’ (2004), indicates that some aspects of ergativityc still remain a puzzle; one of those aspects is the contrastive aspect of ergativityc. Although Horvath & Siloni (2011: 2176) state that ergativityc is “attested across languages”, it is striking that a comparison of ergativityc across languages has received little attention. A significant comparative study has been carried out by Fontenelle

(1996) for English and French. However, a comparison of ergativityc between the Germanic languages English, Dutch and German has not been carried out so far, although there are pointers in the literature about how those languages differ with respect to

9 ergativityc. For instance, Abraham (2003: 2) states that English “does not identify ergativityc with empirical clarity equivalent to German and Dutch”.

The purpose of this paper is to compare ergativityc in English, Dutch and German and more precisely to examine which equivalent are used in German and Dutch to represent a set of English ergativec verbs in Dutch. This set consists of 41 English deadjectival ergativec verbs ending in the suffix –en (3).

(3) (brighten, flatten, widen)

This study is organized as follows. The first part of section 2 discusses the ergativec alternation in general. The second part of section 2 deals with the ergativec alternation in respectively English, Dutch and German. Section 3 discusses the methodology used in this research. In section 4, which forms the greater part of this study, the findings, i.e. the translation strategies in Dutch and German, will be closely looked at and compared. The study ends with a diachronic excursion in section 5, which links the differences between

English, Dutch and German concerning ergativityc to changes in the alignment type in the history of English (Toyota 2008).

2 Literature Review

2.1 The complexity of a definition

The complexity of the concept ergativityc is reflected in the continuing debate among linguists. During the last decades, linguists proposed both semantic and syntactic approaches to define ergativityc. However, no consensus has been reached on a definition and on the position of ergativityc within the grammar of a language. Legendre et al. (1991:

1) considered earlier approaches towards ergativityc and argued in their ‘Unifying syntactic and semantic approaches to unaccusativity’ (1991) in favour of a combined approach.

Recently, however, Hovav (2005: 623) noticed that the terms “unaccusative” [ergativec] and “unergative” [transitivec] are still not used consistently among linguists. Davidse (1998: 95) recognizes this problem, as she states there is an “almost total lack of dialogue between [...] schools”. To avoid ambiguity in terms of terminology, I decided to apply the terms by Kristin Davidse for the different types of paradigms and the abbreviations ERG1 and ERG2 for respectively the one-participant construction and the two-participant construction of the ergativec alternation. I listed their equivalents terms in other traditions as well in Table 1. Their definitions are given further on in the literature review.1

Different types of paradigm

Davidse (1992) Transitivec verbs Ergative c verbs Formal tradition Unergative verb Unaccusative verb

Ergativec alternation Davidse (1998) Two-participant construction One-participant construction

Haspelmath (1993, 2002) Causative verb Anticausative verb Inchoative verb Van Gelderen (2011) Causative verb Anticausative verb

This paper ERG2 ERG1 Table 1. Terminology

1The content and structure of §2.1, §2.2, §2.3, §2.5.2, §2.5.3 and §2.5.4 is based on my BA paper ‘A contrastive study of a set of ergative verbs in English and Dutch’

2.2 “Ergativity” representing different phenomena

An important linguist in the research of ergativityc is R.M.W. Dixon. In the late seventies, he defines the term “ergativityc” in general as he states that “a language is said to show ergativec characteristics if the intransitive subject (S) is realized in the same manner as the transitive object (O) and differently from the transitive subject (A)” (Dixon 1979: 60-61). Ergativity thus refers to the system a language adopts to express the relation between these “three core semantic-syntactic relations” (Dixon 1979: 61). Dixon provides an overview of this complex concept by distinguishing between three different levels of ergativity: morphological, syntactic and discourse ergativity (Dixon 1979: 3-5). He refers to “morphological ergativity” if the function of an NP is clear from “(i) case inflections; (ii) particles, i.e. prepositions or postpositions; (iii) pronominal cross-referencing on the main verb or on an auxiliary verb, or (iv) word order” (Dixon 1979: 3). Depending on the particular relation between the object and subject, a language can be (i) absolutive/ergative, in which case the absolutive is usually the unmarked case, or (ii) nominative-accusative, in which the nominative is generally the unmarked case (Dixon 1979: 72). It is important to note, that the system a language adopts, is not clear-cut: no known language is purely ergative at any level (Dixon 1979: 84). The second type of ergativity distinguished by Dixon, viz. “syntactic ergativity”, is much rarer than morphological ergativity. It implies that syntactic rules, e.g. coordination, are specific for certain functions of an NP in a clause. When a language is said to be ergative at a syntactic level, the core of the clause is the intransitive subject (which may remain implicit) and the transitive object (Dixon 1979: 4-5). The third type of ergativity, “discourse ergativity”, is a phenomenon that has only recently achieved attention from linguists. A certain topic (or a non-topic) can be introduced by means of an intransitive subject, a transitive object or a transitive subject. If S and O are treated in the same way in a language, this language is said to have a discourse ergativity (Dixon 1979: 5). Lastly, Dixon states that an additional, more distinct category of ergativity exists in the lexical domain (Dixon 1979: 5). In some languages, some verbs may be used either transitively (with A and O core NPs) or intransitively (with just an S core NP). The subject of the intransitive construction, can be either the same as the transitive subject or it can refer to the object of the transitive construction. In the latter case, these verbs are ergativec (Dixon1979: 5-7). Dixon believes that English belongs to this last category, as it shows ergativity (henceforth ergativityc)in the lexical domain

(Dixon 1979: 7). This type of ergativityc will be the focus of this study.

2.3 Different approaches towards (lexical) ergativityc

As stated earlier, no consensus has been reached on the features of ergativec verbs, because of different linguistic approaches towards ergativityc. Some linguists argue that the meaning of the verb is the crucial factor which determines whether a verb is ergativec or not. Other linguists argue that the syntactic behaviour of the verb is crucial and still others prefer the golden mean between both approaches. A semantic approach is presented by

Haspelmath, who argues that the main distinction between a causative [ERG2] and an inchoative [ERG1] verb, is the fact that “the causative verb meaning includes an agent participant who causes the situation, whereas the inchoative verb meaning excludes a causing agent and presents the situation as occurring spontaneously” (Haspelmath 1993: 90). Unlike Haspelmath, Perlmutter supports a more syntax-oriented approach, formulated as the “unaccusative hypothesis” (Alexiadou et al. 2004: 1-2). Supporters of the

“unaccusative hypothesis” use the term unaccusative in the sense of ergativec and oppose it to the unergative [transitivec] paradigm. According to the formal tradition, intransitive verbs can be divided into two subclasses, unergative [transitivec] and unaccusative

[ergativec] verbs, on the basis of their underlying syntactic structure (Alexiadou et al. 2004: 2). The single argument of intransitive verbs can have syntactically different functions. An unergative verb has a subject as its argument whereas an unaccusative verb has an object as its argument (Alexiadou et al. 2004: 2). Next to this syntactic difference,

Perlmutter takes the semantics of the ergativec verb into account as well, as he believes that the semantic role of the single argument is distinct. The role of the single argument of an unaccusative verb is a patient, a function which is typically associated with the object (Friedman: 2008: 355), whereas the single argument of an unergative verb is an agent. Perlmutter thus believes that agentivity or the lack of agentivity plays a role in distinguishing between unergativity [transitivityc] or unaccusativity [ergativityc] (Alexiadou et al. 2004: 12). The difference in agentivity is exemplified in (4)-(5).

(4) The boy smiles. (5) The girl falls.

In (4), the boy is the subject of the action smiling and has a typical agent-role. The verb to smile is thus an unergative verb. In (5), by contrast, the argument the girl is according to supporters of the “unaccusative hypothesis” the object of the clause, since the girl

13 undergoes the process of falling. The verb to fall can therefore be labelled as an unaccusative verb [ergativec]. Other supporters of the “unaccusativity hypothesis” have argued that not agentivity, but telicity is the crucial notion determining unaccusativity:

“unaccusative verbs [ergativec] tend to be telic, while unergative ones [transitivec] tend to be atelic” (Alexiadou et al. 2004: 13). Zaenen, following Perlmutter’s “unaccusative hypothesis”, investigated a set of Dutch ergativec verbs and confirmed the significance of the notion telicity in the distinction between unaccusativity [ergativityc] and unergativity

[transitivityc] (Zaenen 1993: 326-327). Legendre et al. (1991), Levin & Hovav (1995) and Zaenen (1993:318) believe that syntax and semantics intermingle. Levin & Hovav (1995) argue that the notion of action and change of state on the one hand and that of internal and external causation on the other hand defines the difference between respectively unergative verbs [transitivec] and unaccusative [ergativec] ones. Legendre et al. point out a shortcoming of the syntactic approach, which is the lack of tests for unergativity. This has as a result that the class of unergatives [transitivesc] are often defined negatively” (Legendre et al. 1991: 4). Davidse too takes into account both semantic and syntactic characteristics to define ergativityc. She nuances the idea of internal and external causation (Levin & Hovav 1995) as characteristic for ergativec verbs, as she focuses on “the construction types rather than on verb classes”

(Davidse 1998: 99). She characterizes the one-participant construction [ERG1] as potentially possessing the feature “instigatable” and contrast this with the two-participant construction [ERG2], which has the “externally instigated” feature (Davidse 1998: 99).

The distinction between ERG1 and ERG2 is illustrated in (6)-(7).

(6) The snow globe shook. (7) The boy shook the snow globe.

In (6), the participant in ERG1, the snow globe, possesses the feature “instigatable”. In

ERG2 (6), the external instigator the boy is made explicit. The participant in ERG1 does not necessarily possesses the feature “instigatable”. Illustration (8) shows an ergativec verb which is internally caused.

(8) The boy shuddered. (9) *The boy shuddered the snow globe. (10) *The snow globe shuddered.

The verb to shake in (6)-(7) and the verb to shudder in (8)-(10) thus differ with respect to the features ‘externally caused’ and ‘internally caused’. Davidse (1998: 99) believes that an internally caused verb has an “argument with some inherent property which is itself responsible for bringing about the eventuality”. Therefore, an external argument cannot be added as is illustrated in (9). The arguments of internally caused verbs are “typically people or animals” (Davidse 1998: 99), e.g. the boy in (8). This is the reason why the snow globe in (10), which is an inanimate subject, is not acceptable. Whereas Perlmutter treated unaccusative verbs as a subclass of intransitive verbs,

Davidse assigns ergativec verbs a different position within the grammatical system.

Following Halliday, she posits the ergativec construction paradigm as a type of construal of actions and events. In her functional approach, she views the grammar of material processes as “Janus-headed”, i.e. two distinct types of construal are available for the representation of actions and events: an ergativec one and a transitivec one (Davidse 1998: 102). She characterizes the transitive type of construal as a “process and extension model” (Davidse 1992: 108). The kernel of the transitive construal model is an actor performing an action (e.g. John + read). This Actor-Process can be extended into an Actor-Process-Goal clause (e.g. John was reading the newspaper), resulting in a transitive clause. If it is not extended, the Actor-Process as such is an intransitive clause (e.g. John was reading). By contrast, “the ergative system realizes an ‘instigation of process’ model” (Davidse 1992: 109). This process can, as mentioned earlier, be either self-instigated (Medium-Process, as in The door opened) or externally instigated (Instigator-Process-Medium, as in Jane opened the door) (Davidse 1992: 109). According to Davidse, “the transitive system and ergative system have different grammatical centres and different directionalities” (Davidse 1992: 110). Transitive clauses have the actor as nucleus and can only be extended to the right to include a goal. Ergativec clauses, by contrast, have the medium as centre and can only be extended to the left to introduce the instigator (Davidse 1992: 110). The split between the transitivec and ergativec system can be detected formally in two alternation constructions (Davidse & Geyskens 1997: 5). First, the ergativec construction can be paraphrased by means of an analytic causative, whereas the transitivec construction does not allow this paraphrase (11).

(11) a. transitivec: He spread the bread. / * He caused the bread to spread.

b. ergativec: Malicious rivals spread rumours. / Malicious rivals caused rumours to spread. (Davidse & Geyskens1997: 4-5)

Second, the ergativec, construction in contrast to the transitivec construction, can be alternated in a one-participant construction [ERG1]which is non-caused (Davidse & Geyskens 1997: 5). This is illustrated in (12).

(12) a. transitivec: He spread the bread. / *The bread spread.

b. ergativec: Malicious rivals spread rumours. / Rumours spread. (Davidse & Geyskens 1997: 5)

2.4 Ergativityc as a type of valence reduction

The ergativec alternation – the alternation of ERG2 to ERG1 – is regarded as a type of valence reduction (Haspelmath & Bardey 1991). The valence of a verb is defined by Haspelmath (2002: 210) as “the information that these entries [i.e. the semantic-role structures and the syntactic function structures of verbs] contain in addition to the pronunciation the word-class and the meaning”. Haspelmath (2002: 210) distinguishes two structures in the valence of a verb: the syntactic function structure (also “syntactic valence” or “function structure”) and the semantic-role structure (also “semantic valence” or “argument structure”). In the discussion of valence change according to Haspelmath (2002:

213), the anticausative [ERG1] is a clear example of an event-changing operation. Haspelmath & Bardey (1991) argue, in their comparative study of valence changes, that the alternation in the valence pattern of the verb does not necessarily involve a morphological derivational process, as in for example the ‘Dative Shift’. However, they consider the ergativec alternation as the result of such a derivational process (Haspelmath & Bardey 1991: 2) They classify changes in the valence of verbs into valence-decreasing and valence-increasing categories. The valence-decreasing morphological categories in turn are divided into the patient-removing and agent-removing categories. Haspelmath &

Bardey (1991: 2) include the anticausative [ERG1] in the agent-removing category. They (1991: 4) state that most languages strongly require an argument that occupies the subject position. When the subject is deleted as a result of a valence-decreasing operation, the patient argument must fill up the subject position. Haspelmath & Bardey (1991: 4) consider the anticausative [ERG1] as the most radical agent-removing category, as it eliminates the agent argument completely. Haspelmath & Bardey (1991: 5) argue that the anticausative [ERG1] is similar to the passive, in that both constructions eliminate the agent from subject position. However, the anticausative [ERG1] differs crucially from the passive in two ways. First, it eliminates the agent completely and as a result, the action in the 2 anticausative construction [ERG1] appears to occur spontaneously. Second, the anticausative [ERG1] can only be formed from a limited set of verbs, i.e. from verbs “expressing actions that are performed without any specific instruments or methods, so that they can be thought of as happening spontaneously, without a (human) agent’s intervention” (Haspelmath & Bardey 1991: 5).

Haspelmath & Bardey (1991: 5-7) do not only compare the anticausative [ERG1] construction to the passive, they also compare it to a category that is “somewhat similar, i.e. the resultative, illustrated in (13). The resultative construction “turns a verb that refers to an event into a verb referring to a state that results from that event” (Haspelmath & Bardey 1991: 6).

(13) anticausative The door is closing. (the door closes) resultative The door is closed. (Haspelmath & Bardey: 1991: 5-6, 10b-c)

However, Haspelmath & Müller-Bardey (1991: 6) add that the resultative and the anticausative construction [ERG1] are very different. The anticausative [ERG1] has the deletion of the agent participant as its main feature, whereas the resultative is the “expression of a state by means of an event word” and the lack of agent is therefore only a secondary effect, due to the fact that states cannot have an agent.

2 See Davidse (1998) in §2.3: ‘Different approaches towards (lexical) ergativityc, pp. 14-15

2.5 Contrastive study of ergativityc

2.5.1 General

In the cross-linguistic study of ergativityc, the term “unaccusative mismatch” needs to be explained. It is well-known that diagnostics for ergativityc does not identify the same verbs as being ergativec within and across languages. These differences within and across languages are referred to as “unaccusative mismatches” (Alexiadou et al. 2004: 8). An example of a diagnostic which has been proposed in order to determine whether a verb is ergativec or not is the selection of the auxiliary verb to form a perfective construction (e.g. Van de Beld 2010: 22; Bentley & Eythórsson 2003: 448-452). This test provides an illustration of an unaccusative mismatch. In most Romance and Germanic languages, the auxiliary be is selected for the perfect construction in the case of ergativec verbs, while transitivec verbs select have, as for instance in Dutch (14) (Bentley & Eythórsson. 2003:

448) and German (15). English (16) is in this respect an exception, as both transitivec and ergativec verbs use the auxiliary verb to have (Alexiadou et al. 2004: 5).

(14) a. De deur is geopend. b. Hij heeft de deur geopend. (15) a. Die Tür ist geöffnet. b. Er hat die Tür geöffnet. (16) a. The door has opened. b. He has opened the door.

Other tests to distinguish ergativec from transitivec verbs which apply to English,

Dutch and German are: the possibility for participles of ergativec verbs to occur as a prenominal modifier (17-18) and the inability of ergativec verbs to be passivized (19a), as opposed to transitivec verbs which can have an impersonal passive (Alexiadou et al. 2004:

5-6). An additional criterion for ergativec verbs is the possibility to appear in resultative constructions (20) (Alexiadou et al. 2004: 5).

(17) a. de gekuste student b. der geküβte Student c. the kissed student (Alexiadou et al. 2004: 6, 16a)

(18) a. de ingeslapen student b. der eingeschlafene Student c. the fallen asleep student (Alexiadou et al. 2004: 6, 16c)

(19)a. *Er werd door de kinderen in Amsterdam gebleven. It was by the children in Amsterdam remained. b. Er werd hier door de jongelui veel gedanst. It was here by the young people a lot danced.

(20) a. The bottle broke open. (Alexiadou et al. 2004: 5, 15c b. De fles brak open. c. Die Flasche brach offen.

Next to “unaccusative mismatch”, “lability” is a second significant term in the comparison of ergativityc in English, Dutch and German. Labile verbs are, according to Van Gelderen (2011: 108), those verbs that change in valence without altering morphologically. Haspelmath defines lability similarly as he states that in a labile alternation, “the same verb is used both in the inchoative [ERG1] and in the causative

[ERG2] sense” (Haspelmath 1993: 92). Like Haspelmath, Davidse observes the flexibility of ERG1 and ERG2 (21) and opposes this flexibility to a different way of expressing the relation between ERG1 and ERG2, i.e. by means of different lexemes (22) (Davidse 1992: 108-109).

(21) a. The door opened. b. The man opened the door. (22) a. The chicken died. b. The man killed the chicken.

Interesting in Haspelmath’s research is that he questions whether verbs, which are morphologically identical, but behave differently in the syntactic distribution, can be labelled as labile verbs or not (Haspelmath 1993: 98-99). An example of the Dutch

19 ergativec verb breken and the German ergativec verb brechen, is shown in (23)-(24). These 3 verbs have a different syntactic distribution in ERG1 and ERG2.

(23) a. Het kopje is gebroken. b. Die Tasse ist gebrochen. c. (The cup has broken) (24) a. De jongen heeft het kopje gebroken. b. Der Junge hat die Tasse gebrochen. c. (The boy has broken the cup)

As illustrated in (23)-(24), a difference in the choice of auxiliary verb can be found in the perfect tense. In ERG1 (23), the verb zijn (to be) in Dutch and the verb sein (to be) in

German is selected, whereas ERG2 requires the verb hebben (to have) in Dutch or haben in German in the perfect tense (24). Haspelmath considers such verbs labile, as “the inflection is different only in certain forms and one would not say that the verbs are derived from the stem by means of the auxiliary” (Haspelmath 1993: 99). Letuchij (2004: 1) remarks that linguists use the term lability with three distinct senses. According to Letuchij (2004: 1) the most frequent sense of lability refers to verbs that can occur in both ERG1 and ERG2. In this type of lability, the causation of the single argument is added in ERG2. Second, the term lability is often used in a broader sense, when it includes all verbs that can be used both intransitively and transitively without an additional causative meaning in the transitive construction, as shown in (25)

(25) a. Mary knits very well. b. Mary knits a sweater. (Letuchij 2004: 1)

Lastly, lability can very generally refer to the “ability to be used in several constructions of the sentence without special marking of diathesis change in the verb” (Polinskaya 1986: 44, as cited in Letuchij 2004: 1). In this sense, the semantics of the construction are neglected. It is the first sense of lability that is significant for this research, i.e. the sense which is used in Van Gelderen (2011), Haspelmath (1993) and Davidse (1992). Letuchij (2004: 1) focuses on the semantic types of verbs that are associated with lability and on “the main types of correlation between the two constructions of the ergative

3 See (14)-(15), p.18

20 alternation of the verb”. Letuchij (2004: 1-4) acknowledges that lability may be common in one language, but very rare in another. He notices that in English, “most transitive verbs can also be used intransitively, but in other Germanic languages, only restricted verb classes have this property”. Despite the fact that lability is language-specific, Letuchij (2004: 1) finds that some groups of verbs tend to be more labile than other types of verbs. He therefore formulates his research question as the implicational universal: “if there are labile verbs in a certain language, verbs of these groups will likely be labile”. He distinguishes four types of verbs that are frequently labile. Phase verbs – those verbs that denote a phase of the situation - constitute the first group of labile verbs, e.g. the German anfangen (begin/be begun), enden (finish/be over) or aufhören (stop/be stopped). Letuchij (2004: 2) is even more radical in his view than Haspelmath (1993), as he considers verbs to be labile when they are only semantically labile, i.e. when “they designate a situation P and its causation”. These verbs are not necessarily syntactically labile, as for instance aufhören, which takes a prepositional object and not a direct object (26).

(26) Ich hörte mit der Arbeit auf. (I finished the work) (Letuchij 2004 : 4, 2)

Letuchij (2004: 22) notes that not all German phase verbs are labile. Most frequently labile are the inchoative phase verbs, i.e. those verbs that designate the beginning of an action. The second group of verbs, associated with lability are the verbs with a prototypically patient argument, e.g. the verb to break. A third group of verbs that tend to be labile, according to Letuchij (2004: 2), is made up of verbs that share a semantic component, e.g. the verbs go and lead share as a common meaning ‘the subject goes’ as “lead X = ‘go with X and make X go”. Lastly, Letuchij (2004: 3) states that derived verbs are often labile as well. According to Letuchij (2004: 4), the most common type of lability is “causative lability”. In this type of lability, the verb can either denote the “situation P” or the “causation of the situation P”. However, Letuchij (2004: 4-5) distinguishes three other types of lability. First, he recognizes “reflexivity lability”. This reflexive type expresses both the meaning “’X P Y’, where X is the subject and Y is the object, and ‘X P X’, where X is both subject and object” (Letuchij 2004: 4). This type of lability is found in English as well, as illustrated in (27).

(27) The mother washes the baby. / John washes (his face). (Letuchij 2004: 4)

A second type of lability, “reciprocal lability”, is not widespread across languages, but it is found in English. The labile verb denotes “’X P Y’ and ‘P and Y P each other’, as shown in (28).

(28) I met her. / We meet in the street (meet each other). (Letuchij 2004: 4)

Lastly, Letuchij distinguishes “passive lability” (conversive lability), which “designate the same situation P using different participant as subjects” (Letuchij 2004: 5) This type of lability is very rare and does not occur in English.

2.5.2 Contrastive approaches so far

In her comparative study of Old English and other Germanic languages, Van Gelderen finds that Old English already deviates from the other Germanic languages in its basic valence pattern (Van Gelderen 2011: 106). The basic valence pattern of a language is the pattern which is most frequent and is morphologically the simplest one (Van Gelderen 2011: 106). Van Gelderen then compared the pattern of Old English with that of Modern English and discovered that the valence pattern remained stable in the history of the English language, but that English deviates substantially from the other Germanic languages in having the greatest number of labile verbs (Van Gelderen 2011: 106). Already in 1997, Abraham (1997, as cited in Van Gelderen 2011: 114) came to the same conclusion as Van Gelderen, viz. that English verbs differ from verbs in the other Germanic languages with respect to the representation of ergativityc. Moreover Abraham states that anticausative verbs [ERG1] and causative verbs [ERG2] in English are indistinguishably labile as opposed to the other Germanic languages where there is a clear morphological contrast between the alternating forms (Abraham 1997, as cited in Van Gelderen 2011: 114).

Another important linguist in the field of ergativityc is Haspelmath (1993). In his study, he examines the inchoative/causative [ergativec] alternations cross-linguistically and defines the inchoative/causative [ergativec] pair as:

a pair of verbs which express the same basic situation (generally a change of state, more rarely a going-on) and differ only in that the causative verb meaning includes an agent participant who causes the situation, whereas the inchoative verb meaning excludes a causing agent and presents the situation as occurring spontaneously (Haspelmath 1993: 90).

Haspelmath first divides the inchoative/causative pair into directed and non-directed pairs. In directed oppositions, “one of the members of the alternation is derived from the other” (García García 2012: 125). Within the directed pairs, causative oppositions and anticausative oppositions are distinguished and classified according to markedness. The intransitive member [ERG1] is morphologically marked in the anticausative pair, whereas the transitive member [ERG2] is more marked in the causative pair (García García 2012: 125). The anticausative pair is illustrated for German in (29), the causative pair in (30). (Comrie 2006: 304)

(29) umdrehen (turn) transitive sich umdrehen (turn) intransitive (30) enden (finish) intransitive beenden (finish) transitive

An illustration of the anticausative is provided in (31) for English. (31) to lose / to get lost. (García García 2012: 125, 4)

García García (2012: 125) in line with Haspelmath (1993), adds a third category within the directed pairs, i.e. the “periphrastic” or “analytic” causatives. This periphrastic construction uses a causative auxiliary, as illustrated in (32).

(32) to laugh / to make laugh (García García 2012: 125, 3)

García García (2012: 125) furthermore states that it is common in “modern European languages […] to use the reflexive pronoun as an anticausative particle”. This is shown in

4 (33) for German. In contrast with German, English makes use of the ergativec verb to open, Dutch uses a periphrastic anticausative pair (34).

(33) a. Ich öffnete die Tür . (I opened the door) b. Die Tür öffnete sich. (the door opened) (García García 2012: 125, 5a-5b) (34) a. Ik opende de deur (I opened the door) b. De deur ging open (the door opened)

In the non-directed pairs, each member of the inchoative/causative pair is equally marked (Comrie 2006: 304) or put differently, neither member is derived from the other (García García 2012: 125). The non-directed pairs can be subdivided into labile, equipollent and suppletive oppositions. Labile verbs have the same form in both the transitive [ERG2]

(35a) and intransitive construction [ERG1] (35b).

(35) a. The child broke the bottle. b. The bottle broke.

In equipollent verb pairs (called “correlative oppositions” by García García 2012), both members are marked, as they both differ in one part of the stem, either root or affixes can vary, as illustrated for German in (36) (Comrie 2006: 304, García García 2012: 126).

(36) aufwachen/ aufwecken “wake up” lernen/lehren “learn/teach” (Haspelmath 1993: 100)

García García (2012: 126) argues that some English morphological pairs, that can be traced back to Germanic morphological causatives, belong to the equipollent verb pairs, as their relationship is synchronically not transparent anymore (García García 2012: 126). Lastly,

4 García García (2012: 125) remarks that the German reflexive pronoun sich functions here as a middle marker, which implies that the Agent has not been eliminated from the valence structure of the sentence: “The reflexive pronoun cannot signal that agent and patient are co-referential, since the predicate is non- agentive (García García 2012: 125)”. Haspelmath (2002: 213) describes this as well and believes it is due to the fact that agent and patient are co-referential that the reflexive can be seen as having only a single syntactic function.

24 the members of suppletive verb pairs, 5 have a different root in the transitive and intransitive construction, shown in (37) (Comrie 2006: 304). (37) die kill

Haspelmath (1993: 88) finds great differences across languages and even within languages in the direction of derivation. According to Haspelmath (1993: 88) we find “abundant cases of asymmetric relationships between words, where one word is basic and another word is formally derived from it”. He illustrates this by means of the English lexeme resultative which is derived from the noun result. This variation across and within languages is not random, but depends on the so-called “principle of diagrammatic iconicity“:

The formally derived (or marked) words are generally also semantically derived in that they have some additional meaning element that is lacking in the formally basic (or unmarked) word. This correlation between the formal and the semantic basic-derived (or markedness) relationships has been identified as an instance of diagrammatic iconicity. (Haspelmath 1993: 87)

Haspelmath (1993: 96) collected a sample of 31 verb pairs in 21 languages in order to investigate the inchoative/causative verb [ergativec] alternation. It is important to note for this research that English and German are both included. Haspelmath finds that “languages differ greatly in their ways of expressing the relationship between inchoative and causative verbs” (Haspelmath 1993: 89), which confirms his more general claim that languages differ greatly in derivation, due to the principle of diagrammatic iconicity (Haspelmath 1993: 100-101). Haspelmath argues that the inchoative/causative alternation is particularly regular in verbs that are derived from an adjective (Haspelmath 1993: 94-95). He illustrates this by means of German and states that every German factitive derivation can build an anticausative by adding the particle sich (38).

(38) German adjectives, factitives and anticausatives flüssig (liquid) verflüssigen (make liquid) sich verflüssigen (become liquid)

5 Cf. Baron (1974): “Lexical causatives”, pp. 34-35

anders (different) verändern (change (tr.)) sich veränderen (change (intr.)) voll (full) füllen (fill (tr.)) sich füllen (fill (intr.)) stark (strong) verstärken (reinforce) sich verstärken (become strong) (Haspelmath 1993: 94-95, 17)

This regularity in the deadjectival factitives is, according to Haspelmath (1993: 95), due to the fact that they “generally only contain the meaning component ‘cause to become’ in addition to the adjectival meaning, and this meaning component is neither agent-oriented nor otherwise too specific or unlikely”. Furthermore Haspelmath (1993: 100-101) adds that some languages exhibit almost always a non-directed derivation in the inchoative/causative pair, e.g. English, German, Japanese, Indonesian, Georgian and Greek. Among these languages, English is unique in this strong preference for non-directed derivation (Haspelmath 1993: 101). More precisely, Haspelmath, like Abraham (1997 as cited in Haspelmath 1993: 102) and van Gelderen (2011), finds that English especially prefers labile verbs in the causative/inchoative alternation (Haspelmath 1993: 102). Comrie (2006) carried out another important contrastive study with regard to ergativityc, in which he uses the methodology as developed in Haspelmath (1993) to examine the relations in causative-inchoative verb pairs. His aim is twofold: First, Comrie considers some individual languages to test Haspelmath’s typology; second, he researches the diachronic stability of his classification. Comrie combines Haspelmath’s findings with his own results and in so doing, he obtains the language profiles of 24 different languages, by considering the translation of 31 concepts in each language. In general, Comrie confirms Haspelmath’s classification and concludes that cross-linguistically, causative pairs are preferred, “with Europe being anomalous in its high incidence of languages preferring anticausative pairs” (Comrie 2006: 307). He finds that the language profiles are diachronically stable in their predominance of either anticausative or causative pairs. Interesting for this research are the language profiles of English and German, which are integrated in Comrie’s study. The profile for English is rather clear-cut: 25 out of 31 verb pairs are translated labile in English, 3 verb pairs are translated suppletive, 2 verb pairs are anticausative, and one is equipollent. German on the other hand prefers the anticausative

26 pairs (15.5 out of 31 verb pairs) and only 9.5 concepts are translated labile.6 Two minor groups build the equipollent verbs pairs (4 verb pairs) and the suppletive verbs pairs (1 verb pair), which is the same for English (Comrie 2006: 306).

A last contrastive study in ergativityc that is relevant for this research has been carried out for English and French by Fontenelle (1996). He investigated the representation of [ERG1] and [ERG2] in the Collins-Robert English-French dictionary. He argues that the arguments of a verb are mainly determined by its meaning; therefore the definitions in the bilingual dictionary provide useful data (Fontenelle 1996: 209). According to Fontenelle, bilingual dictionaries usually use the so-called “splitting strategy”, i.e. the various transitive senses and the various intransitive senses of a verb are listed separately (Fontenelle 1996: 212). Fontenelle finds five different possibilities for the translation of

English ergativec verbs in French in the Collins-Robert English-French dictionary. A first option is that both constructions are expressed by the same verb in French, i.e. the same as in English. A second possibility is pronominalization (39), i.e. the use of a French pronominal verb “to account for the intransitive usage of an English ergative verb” (Fontenelle 1996: 215).

(39) a. Joy lightened his face. La joie éclaira son visage. b. His face lightened. Son visage s'éclaira. (Fontenelle 1996: 215)

Thirdly, the causative operator faire can be introduced, so that we get the construction faire + infinitive (40).

(40) a. The worker rotates the axes. L'ouvrier fait tourner les axes. b. The axes rotate. Les axes tournent. (Fontenelle 1996: 215)

6 The 15.5 and 9.5 are due to the fact that two synonymous verb pairs existed for one concept. Haspelmath (1993: 100) counted these two verb pairs as 0.5 when expressed differently.

A fourth option is the use of another causative operator rendre + adjective, the equivalent of the English paraphrase to make + adjective. (41).

(41) toughen a. Transitive: rendre plus solide, renforcer b. Intransitive: devenir plus solide (Fontenelle 1996: 215)

A last possibility to represent the English ergativec verb in French is the passive construction (42) (Fontenelle 1996: 214-216).

(42) transfer a.Transitive: transférer, muter b. Intransitive: être transféré or muté (Fontenelle 1996: 215)

A similar contrastive study for Dutch or German has not been carried out so far. I aim to provide a first step towards filling this gap in the research of ergativityc.

2.5.3 Ergativityc in English

2.5.3.1 Causativizing affixes

As deadjectival verbs ending in the suffix –en are the focus of my research, I will first provide some general information on affixes and I will focus on English causative suffixes in particular. Klaholz (2005: 4) defines affixes in general as bound morphemes which are added to free morphemes. The process of adding an affix to an independent morpheme is called “affixation”. When an affix precedes the free morpheme, it is called a prefix; when the affix is positioned after the independent morpheme, it is called a suffix (Klaholz 2005: 4). Klaholz (2005: 4) states that English prefixes in general alter the lexeme but they usually do not influence the word-class. This is not the case with suffixes, which can alter the word-class of the free morpheme (Fabb 1988: 528). Fabb lists five distinct functions of suffixes; they can either be deadjectival (e.g. –ify), deverbal (e.g. –al), denominal (e.g. – ed), adjective-forming (e.g. –y) or noun-forming (e.g. –ant) (Fabb: 1988: 532). The first class of suffixes, the deadjectival suffixes, contains the suffix –en as well. This suffix is, according to Fabb, special, as it is only attachable to monosyllabic adjectives (Fabb 1988:

535). Fabb thus concludes that “-en is constrained only by two selectional restrictions: (a) involving category, (b) involving monosyllables” (Fabb 1988: 535). Kjellmer (2001: 155) states that deadjectival verbs can have three functions, which can be combined within one verb. Deadjectival verbs are mostly either transitive/inchoative, e.g. to purify (to make (sth.) pure(r)) or intransitive/inchoative, e.g. to harden (to become hard(er)). The third function of deadjectival verbs, intransitive/copulative is rather rare, e.g. to idle (to be idle) (Kjellmer 2001: 155). Van Gelderen (2011: 125) characterizes deadjectival verb in –en as having a causativizing function. The suffix –en was introduced in Middle English, since the function of the prior causativizer -i was not transparent anymore (Van Gelderen 2011: 125). According to Skeat (1892, as cited in Van Gelderen 2011: 125), the –en suffix is derived from the Gothic verbal class with a –na suffix. The function of this –na suffix, a detransitivizer, was then altered into a causativizer (Skeat 1892, as cited in Van Gelderen 2011: 125). The –en suffix became highly productive and turned nouns and adjectives into causative verbs (Suzuki 1989, as cited in Van Gelderen 2011: 125). The prior causativizer –i in Old English was derived from the causativizer -j in early Germanic and caused a morphological contrast between e.g. the Old English anticausative verb nesan (escape from, be saved) and the causative verb nerian (save, protect) (Van Gelderen 2011: 124). This causativizer has been largely replaced by the causativizer –en in Middle English, but Van Gelderen states that traces of the causativizer –i can still be seen in a few Modern English verb pairs, such as sit and set, lie and lay, fall and fell, whose vowel alternation was caused by this affix (Van Gelderen 2011: 123). Next to the causativizers –i and –en, three other causativizers, –ize, –ate and –ify, were borrowed into Middle English but have lost their productivity in Modern English (Van Gelderen 2011: 127). The suffix –ate adopted Latin participles into English (e.g. activate and assassinate) (Van Gelderen 2011: 127). The suffix –ify on the other hand was used to anglicise French loanwords, as in clarify and unify, and corresponds to the French causative verbs on –fier (Van Gelderen 2011: 126). Baron (1974: 306-307) argues that in Modern English, at least four suffixes exist that derive causative verbs from adjectives and nouns. In contrast to Van Gelderen (2011), Baron (1974: 306) argues that these four suffixes are productive in Modern English, although some are “more productive than others”. These causativizing suffixes include – ify, -ize and –en, as in Van Gelderen (2011), but Baron adds the zero-suffix as well.

Examples of the zero suffix which derived verbs from adjectives and nouns are shown in (43).

(43) adjective → verb adjective verb - ∅ yellow yellow blue blue cool cool empty empty warm warm clear clear noun → verb noun verb

- ∅ wine wine and dine

(Baron 1974: 306-307, 16-17)

Next to these suffixes, Baron (1974: 307) distinguishes two prefixes, en- and dis-, that turn adjectives and nouns into causative verbs. Examples are given in (44).

(44) adjective → verb adjective verb

enrich enrich able enable disable disable

noun → verb noun verb

encode encode

circle encircle

courage encourage

discourage discourage

(Baron 1974: 307, 18-19)

Van Gelderen (2011: 127) concludes that “[d]ue to the loss of these affixes

[causativizing affixes and transitivizing affixes in Old English], unaccusatives [ERG1] and causatives [ERG2] have the same form”. This accounts for the higher number of labile

30 verbs in English. However, the reason for the loss of causativizers in English and the deviation from the other Germanic languages, which is accompanied by this loss, remains unclear, according to Van Gelderen (2011: 137).7

2.5.3.2 Causative constructions

In this chapter, I will discuss some other strategies, next to ergativec verbs, to present causation and unaccusativity in English. Causation -or the formulation of the causative- has been a desirable topic of research in the tradition of linguistic research and during the last decades, it has received much attention from typologists (García García 2012: 122). Consensus has been reached between linguists about the significance of causation: linguists agree that the causative is the most frequent morphological valence changing category in the languages of the world (Bybee 1985: 29 in Haspelmath & Bardey 1991: 11, García García 2012: 122). Moreover, as causatives form a significant share of the transitive verbs, they play a major role in transitivity studies as well (García García 2012: 122). García García (2012: 122) argues in his study on morphological causatives in Old English that: “[i]n many languages (and perhaps covertly in all languages) the transitivity relationship lies at the explanatory core of most [emphasis in the original] grammatical processes”. Haspelmath & Bardey (1991: 11-14) situate the causative in the valence- increasing categories, and consider it more specifically as an agent adding construction.8 In this agent adding construction, the additional participant, i.e. the causer fills up the subject position and the former subject must move and take up a different position. Some languages can not only derive causatives from intransitive construction, but also from transitive constructions (Haspelmath & Bardey 1991: 12). The former subject of the transitive sentence, the causee, can then be treated in three different ways. It can be expressed by means of an indirect object, an instrumental phrase or by means of a second direct object. In his study on the structure of English causatives, Baron (1974: 299) defines causation semantically as shown in (45):

7 Cf. §5.2: ‘Hypothesis’, pp 78-80 8 See §2.4: ‘Ergativityc as a type of valence reduction’, pp. 16-17

(45) “a relationship between two states of affairs (X at time T1 and X’ at time T2) and a cause Z which provides the necessary conditions for effecting the change from X to X’. More precisely, (a) Z is the cause of the change from X to X’. (b) The transition from X to X’ is a causative action. (c) State of affairs X’ is an effect or result." [italics in original]

Haspelmath & Bardey (1991:13) characterize causatives semantically as well, by distinguishing two types of causatives, according to the type of causer. In the first type, the direct causative, the causer “actively participates in the action, acting on the cause (in order to get the content of the base verb realized), which will imply some sort of coercion in case the causee is animate” (Haspelmath & Bardey 1991: 13). In the indirect causative on the other hand, the cause and result of the action are less closely related, the causer is merely the instigator or a distinct cause of the event, expressed in the verb.9 This contrast is illustrated in (46)-(47).10

(46) Direct causation Indirect causation John put clothes on Mary. John made Mary wear clothes. (Haspelmath 2008: 14) (47) Direct causation Indirect causation He killed the chicken. He caused the chicken to die.

Shibatani lists three types of causatives: root causatives, affixal causatives and auxiliary causatives (Shibatani 1975: 4). Root causatives are frequently used in most languages. These are verbs in which the root and the causative morpheme are the same. Shibatani (1975) includes distinct strategies within this category.11 Instances for this type are the verbs to kill and to lay (Shibatani 1975: 4). The one-participant alternation of the root causative can be another lexeme. The causative verb to kill is, for instance, as opposed to the anticausative verb to die, the causative verb to lay to the anticausative verb (ERG1) to lie (Shibatani 1975: 4). Affixal causatives are a second type of causatives. They are especially associated with agglutinative languages. Infixes, prefixes and suffixes have all been attested, but the selection of a language for a causative infix is rare. Prefixes are more

9 See Davidse 1998 in §2.3: ‘Different approaches towards (lexical) ergativityc, pp. 14-15 10 See (8)-(10), p. 14 11 Cf. Baron (1974) for a more refined taxonomy, pp. 33-35

32 common, but most languages adopt suffixes to express causatives, e.g. English (Shibatani 1975: 5-6).12 A last category of causatives are the auxiliary causatives. These auxiliary verbs usually come with isolating languages, “due to their typological nature” (Shibatani 1975: 6). English is according to Shibatani a “so-called fusional language”, which means it can adopt auxiliary causative verbs as well (Shibatani 1975: 7). Some auxiliary causative verbs are illustrated in (48)-(51).

(48) I made my brother go to the grocery store. (49 I caused my brother to go to the grocery store. (50) I had my brother go to the grocery store. (51) I got my brother to go to the grocery store.

Shibatani calls these periphrastic constructions “more abstract causative verbs” (Shibatani

1975: 6). They represent a similar meaning of the ERG2, i.e. causation. However, Levin &

Hovav remark that ERG2 is more limited in its interpretation, because it only allows a direct, manipulative causation, whereas a periphrastic construction includes both direct and indirect causation (Levin & Hovav 1994: 36 n1). Baron (1974: 302-310) distinguishes the same morphological and syntactic strategies as Shibatani (1975) to express causation in English. However, Baron (1974) differentiates subcategories within the three categories: root causatives, affixal causatives and auxiliary causatives. His classification is summarized in Table 2.

1. Morphological

(a) Verb non-causative →verb causative (i) Strong/weak verb alteration (ii) Suppletion (iii) Same verb (lexical)

(b) Adj./noun + Affix →verb causative

(i) Adj./noun + Affix →verb causative

(ii) Prefix + Adj./noun

12 Cf. §2.5.3.1: ‘Causativizing affixes’, pp. 28-31.

2. Syntactic (a) Periphrastic (b) Object of result, quasi-causative

Table 2. Formal linguistic devices to express causation in Modern English ( Baron 1974: 302, 1)

Baron (1974: 302) distinguishes first between morphological and syntactic strategies to express causation in English. The morphological mechanism ‘(a) Verb non-causative → verb causative’ corresponds to the root causatives in Shibatani (1975). This strategy consists, according to Baron (1974: 302-306), of three subcategories: (i) the strong/weak alternation, (ii) suppletion and (iii) the same verb. The strong/weak alternation (i), or the change of a non-causative to a causative was a productive strategy in Indo-European, but was never productive in the history of English, although there are some relics in Old English, e.g. licgan (to lie) vs. the causative lecgan (to lay) (Baron 1974: 303). Suppletion (ii) is another type of relation between the causative and anticausative verb, which is very frequent in English. Two distinct forms make up a suppletive pair, when this relation between these forms is typically expressed morphologically in that language (52).

(52) non-causative causative buy sell die kill

The last subcategory (iii) within the morphological strategy “(a) Verb non-causative

→verb causative” is important for this work, since it involves the use of the same verb in both the causative and the anticausative construction. Baron (1974: 305) refers to these verbs as

“lexical causatives” (ergativec verbs) and adds that English has a large number of these verbs (53).

(53) (bend, cool, freeze)

According to Baron (1974: 305) these lexical verbs have their origin in three different historical sources. First, “lexical causatives” [ergativec verbs] can “result from the merger of phonological distinctions” (54) (Baron 1974: 305).

(54) melten/mieltan > melt (Baron 1974: 305-306)

Second, they can arise due to the loss of one member of the causative pair. Typically, it is the causative member that is lost. For example, in non-standard dialects, it is observed that the causative verb teach is substituted by the non-causative learn (55).

(55) A good whipping will learn you not to disobey! (Baron 1974: 305, 14)

Last, “lexical causatives” (ergativec verbs) result through transitivization, which turns intransitive verbs transitive. This process operated especially during the Middle English period (Baron 1974: 306). The verb to cook was, for instance, originally only used as an intransitive verb, but was attested from the 17th century onwards in both transitive and intransitive construction (Möhlig & Klages 2002: 234).13

The second type of morphological causation in English “(b) Adj./noun + Affix

→verb causative” corresponds to the affixal causatives in Shibatani (1975). The syntactic strategies are summarized with the term “auxiliary causatives” in Shibatani (1975). Baron (1974: 307-310) distinguishes within the syntactic strategies two subtypes: “periphrastic constructions” (iv) and “object of result”, “quasi-causative” constructions (v). The periphrastic constructions (iv) consist of two parts: a verb (e.g. have, get, cause, let, make) and a complement. In English, seven types of complement appear in this construction: “i.e. infinitive, present participle, clause, noun, adjective, past participle and locative” (Baron 1974: 308). However, not every complement is compatible with every causative verb. Baron (1974: 309) remarks that some combinations, “especially with have, are predominantly resultative rather than causative (i.e. the sentence focuses upon the resultant state of affairs X’ at time T2 rather than upon the causative action itself).” The last category, the “object of result”, “quasi-causative” construction (v) is not always included in the discussion of causatives in English. However Anderson (1971 in Baron 1974: 309) argues that “verbs taking objects of result are causative verbs”.

13 Cf. “transitivization process” in §5.2: ‘Hypothesis’, p. 79

2.5.4 Ergativityc in Dutch

2.5.4.1 General

For ergativityc in Dutch and English, no contrastive research has been carried out so far. Nonetheless, some relevant studies on Dutch need to be mentioned here as they deal with the Dutch strategies that are used to translate the corresponding English ergativec verb. In the next sections, studies concerning ver-verbs, reflexive verbs and the periphrastic construction with doen/laten will be discussed. The remaining Dutch strategies, i.e. resultative constructions, Dutch ergativec verbs and deadjectival verbs, are not included, since no relevant studies are available.

2.5.4.2 Verbs with prefix ver-

As ver-verbs constitute an important translation strategy in my set English ergativec verbs ending in –en,14 the prefix ver- will be closely discussed in this section. With regard to the relation between Dutch ver-verbs and ergativityc, two studies are worth mentioning. The first research by Van de Beld (2010) focuses on the relation between unaccusativity

(ergativityc) and ver-verbs in Dutch within the Government and Binding tradition. The main processes that account for the distinction between causation (ERG2) and unaccusativity (ERG1) within this framework are “expletivization” and “causativization”.

The first process explains the reduction of ERG2 to ERG2 (Van de Beld 2010: 27). On the other hand, a process that adds an argument is called “causativization” (Van de Beld 2010: 28). The general meaning of the prefix ver– is according to Van de Beld “[t]he movement or transition to a new location or state of the object of the verb” (Van de Beld 2010: 18). This general notion consists, according to van de Beld, of three different types: the “become-type”, “the go-type” and the “mis-type” (Van de Beld 2010: 43). With respect to ergativityc, I will only focus on the first one. The become-verbs have the most transparent meaning, i.e. “the internal role becomes that what is denoted by the stem” e.g. vervlakken (to become flat) (Van de Beld 2010: 43). This type only occurs with verbs that are derived from adjectives or nouns. The prefix ver– is thus an exception, since prefixes generally do not alter the word class (Van de Beld 2010: 45). However, the attachment of the prefix ver– to an adjective is rare, because the adjective needs to have a commonly used

14 See §4.1.2: ‘Prefixed verbs’, 51-52

36 comparative. Therefore, ver-verbs cannot be derived from an adjective that cannot be graded (Van de Beld 2010: 48). In a seconds work that concerns ver-verbs, Los et al. (2012) focus on particles and prefixes from a comparative perspective. Los et al. (2012: 176) argue that the inseparable prefixes be-, ver- and ont- are derived from free morphemes in earlier Germanic, and were “grammaticalized into bound morphemes because Verb Second (V2) was not yet in place so that they were always immediately adjacent to the verb” (Los et al. 2012: 176). English on the other hand lost these prefixes in the transition from Old English to Middle English due to reduction of unstressed syllables. These prefixes were replaced by the productive French and Latin loan affixes (Los et al. 2012: 176). Los et al. (2012: 177), like Van de Beld (2010) state that prefix ver- can be combined with adjectives and nouns and add that they can be connected to verbs as well. Furthermore, Los et al. (2012: 177) believe that both the Dutch and German prefix ver- have a transitivizing effect and that ver-verbs are telic, i.e. denoting that the action is completed.15 The object of ver-verbs is, according to Los et al. (2012: 182) fully affected, “but the affectedness specifically involves the partial or complete destruction, damaging, or wasting of the participant in question”.

2.5.4.3 Reflexive verbs

An important study concerning reflexive constructions in Dutch, the Dutch dialect

Heerlens and French with respect to ergativityc is carried out by De Vries (2000). Since

English ergativec verbs are sometimes presented as reflexive verbs in other languages, for instance in Dutch and German, the exploration of ergativityc in those languages has to take into account the nature of reflexive verbs (Reinhart & Siloni 2004). Abraham stated as early as 1986 that ergativec verbs, reflexive verbs and middles are closely related, because they cannot take an accusative object (Abraham 1986: 1). The labelling of reflexive verbs as ergativec ones has been popular among linguists since the eighties, especially in research that is concerned with Romance reflexives (Reinhart & Siloni 2004: 1). However, the view of reflexives as ergativec has been criticized, e.g. in the study ‘Against the Unaccusative Analysis of Reflexives’, in which Reinhart & Siloni discussed the position of reflexives with regard to ergativityc (Reinhart & Siloni 2004: 1). In their conclusion, Reinhart & Siloni argue that “reflexives systematically fail syntactic tests of unaccusativity” (Reinhart & Siloni 2004: 10). De Vries confirms the study of Reinhart & Siloni in his own research.

15 Cf. Zaenen (1993) and Alexiadou et al. (2004) in §2.3: ‘Different approaches towards ergativityc’, p.14

He examined whether a set of reflexive verbs in Dutch, French and Heerlens were ergativec or not by means of some ergativec tests (De Vries 2010: 1). He concluded as well that reflexive verbs cannot be labelled as ergativec, because the test results were too diffuse (De Vries 2010: 9). However, De Vries believes that reflexive verbs are not necessarily a subgroup of transitivec verbs and adds that additional research is needed to solve this question of classification (De Vries 2010: 9). Cornips & Hulk (1996) as well focus on reflexive verb in Dutch, Heerlens and French and discuss how these verbs should be classified. The starting point of their research concerns the transitive change of state verbs in Heerlen Dutch (henceforth HD), of which the inchoative equivalent appear in two constructions, a reflexive construction (57a) and an intransitive construction (ERG1) (57b). However, the reflexive construction is in standard Dutch (henceforth SD) both “very restricted” and “far from regular” (Everaert 1986: 83, as cited in Cornips & Hulk 1996: 1).

(56) transitive Construction Ik buig het riet. ‘I bend the reed’ (57) inchoative constructions a. HD/?*SD Het riet buigt zich. the reed bends refl ‘the reed is bending’ b. HD/SD Het riet buigt. The reed bends ‘the reed is bending’ (Cornips & Hulk 1996: 1, 1)

Unlike Reinhart & Siloni (2004) and De Vries (2010), Cornips & Hulk (1996: 1) argue in favour of an ergativec analysis for these reflexives in Heerlen Dutch, as was done before for French by Labelle (1990&1992 in Cornips & Hulk 1996: 1) and Zribi-Hertz (1987 in Cornips & Hulk 1996: 1). They claim that the reflexive pronoun in the reflexive construction in Heerlen Dutch “acts as an aspectual marker, namely that of focusing on the end-point of the action” (Cornips & Hulk 1996: 2). They confirm their claim by showing that the distribution of the one-participant construction of the reflexive change of state verbs is distinct from that of default reflexive transitive verbs (Cornips & Hulk 1996: 2). A default embedded reflexive construction, that uses the Dutch causative laten, is

38 grammatical for default reflexives (58), but appears to be ungrammatical for the reflexive change of state verbs (59).

(58) SD/HD Moeder laat de kinderen zich wassen. mother lets the children refl wash (59) SD/HD *Moeder laat het riet zich buigen. mother lets the reed refl bend (Cornips & Hulk 1996: 4, (10)a.-b.)

The ungrammaticality of (48) results, according to Everaert (1986: 89, as cited in Cornips & Hulk 1996: 4), from the fact that “het riet (the reed) is not an agentive external argument which is required by the causative laten” (Cornips & Hulk 1996: 4).

2.5.4.4 Periphrastic construction with doen/laten

In Dutch, it is possible to express causation by means of a periphrastic construction with the verbs doen and laten. These verbs are used as causative verbs when it is followed by “bare infinitival complements, i.e. complements lacking the infinitival marker te (to)” (Verhagen & Kemmer 1997: 62). The subject of the causative verb doen is the causer of the process or state denoted by the non-finite verb. Verhagen & Kemmer (1997: 71) identify two dimensions in causative events, “the distinction between initiator and endpoint of the causal change” and “the distinction between animate and inanimate”. Verhagen & Kemmer (1997: 71) claim that all causative events imply an initiating element and an endpoint. Important for distinguishing the causative verbs doen and laten is, however, the distinction between animate and inanimate causers. Verhagen (1998: 63; 105) find that in general, laten is much more frequent than doen and that laten is more frequently used with an animate causer, doen is much more frequent with an inanimate causer (Verhagen 1998: 63;105). A reason for this contrast between the two causative verbs is proposed by Verhagen & Kemmer (1997), who believe that a cause denoted by the verb doen is a direct one, while laten indicates indirect causation.

(60) Hij haalde de stop eruit en liet het badwater weglopen. he took the plug out and let the bath-water run-away (He took out the plug and let the bathwater flow off.) (Verhagen & Kemmer 1997: 68, (14))

The construction with laten in (60) expresses indirect causation, as the pulling of the plug was only the indirect cause that made the bathwater flow off, the direct cause is a bigger source of energy, i.e. gravity (Verhagen & Kemmer: 1997 68). Verhagen & Kemmer (1997: 67) view indirect causation as an extension of the terms “permission” and “enablement” and define it as “a situation that is conceptualized in such a way that it is recognized that some other force besides the initiator is the most immediate source of energy in the effected event” (Verhagen & Kemmer 1997: 67). The verb doen denotes a direct cause, as illustrated in (61).

(61) De stralende zon doet de temperatuur oplopen. the shining sun does the temperature rise (The bright sun makes the temperature rise.) (Verhagen & Kemmer 1997: 70, (1))

In (61), the subject ‘de stralende zon’ is inanimate and is the direct cause of the event.

2.5.5 Ergativityc in German

2.5.5.1 General

No contrastive studies between English and German regarding ergativityc have been carried out so far. In the next sections, the resultative construction and reflexive verbs will be discussed, since these are frequent German translation strategies in my set of English 16 ergativec verbs ending in –en. I will also discuss the periphrastic construction with lassen, as this is a significant strategy in German to present causation. However, this strategy did not occur in the results, whereas Dutch equivalent construction with laten is found in the findings. I did not include the attributive construction, ergativec verbs and deadjectival

16 See §4.2.3: ‘Attributive construction’: pp 62-64 and §4.2.6: ‘Reflexive verbs’, pp. 66-69

40 verbs in this discussion, although these strategies are found in the translation of English ergativec verbs on –en, as no relevant literature is available on these topics.

2.5.5.2 Verbs with prefix ver-

As for the Dutch prefix –ver, the exact meaning of the German prefix –ver remains unclear. Kaválková (2007: 17; 21) believes that this German prefix, when attached to a verb, influences the transitivity of the verb. The prefix turns the verb transitive by moving the actor of the sentence to a more fronted position. Kaválková (2007: 21-22) distinguishes a causativizing function for ver-, next to 14 other different functions of this prefix. Dauronienė (2007: 64), agrees with Kaválková (2007) as she believes that different meanings are united in this prefix. Smolka et al. (2009: 342) on the other hand state that the bound morphemes ver- and be- “do not necessarily have a meaning of its own.” Wunderlich (1997: 58) argues as well that ver- does not function as a causativizer as it occurs, next to causative verbs, with inchoative verbs as well. Moreover, causative verbs do not necessarily need a prefix. A last reason to conclude that the prefix is not the decisive factor in turning a verb into a causative one is the fact that the vowels in these verbs can carry an umlaut, which is a remnant of a former causative suffix (Wunderlich:1997: 58). Dauronienė (2007: 64) researched the origin of the prefix and states that the modern German prefix ver- corresponds to 3 different Gothic particles: first, it corresponds to the particle faur-, which means vorbei in modern German (past, over), second, to the particle fra- which means weg (gone, left, away) and third to the particle fair-, which is similar to the modern German er-, ent-, heraus- or durch-. Dauronienė (2007: 64) argues that in Old High German and in Middle High German, this prefix did not have a fixed form. Only in the 16th century, under the influence of Martin Luther, this prefix became normalized to the form we know today. Not only the form of ver- varied, the meaning of this prefix was not fixed either. As the ver-prefix is derived from three particles, according to Dauronienė (2007: 64), different meaning competed which led to the erosion of some of these meanings. Dauronienė (2007: 64) argues that this evolution has not yet been completed and that it is still noticeable today. She illustrates this by means of the ver-verb versprechen, which means both für jemanden sprechen (speak out/up for someone) and gegen jemanden sprechen, zurückweisen (reject). She (2007:64) believes that the German reflexive sich aided the ver-prefix to narrow down in meaning.

2.5.5.3 Reflexive verbs

Piñón (2001: 276) believes that it is common for the inchoative member of the ergativec pair [ERG1] to be marked by means of a reflexive pronoun. In German ERG1 is, according to Piñón (2001: 276) either signalled by means of the reflexive pronoun (62) or it is not marked at all (63), as is the case in English. However, this study shows that there are more 17 options to represent the ERG1 in German.

(62) a. Maria öffnete die Tür öffnen. Maria opened the door. b. Die Tür öffnete sich. sich öffnen The door opened. refl (Piñón 2001: 277, 10)

(63) a. Rebecca zerbrach den Bleistift. zerbrechentr Rebecca broke the pencil.

b. Der Bleistift zerbrach. zerbrechenintr the pencil broke . (Piñón 2001: 276-277, 9)

Furthermore, Piñón (2001: 277) finds, next to the ergativec alternating pairs and the verb pairs, in which the one-participant construction is marked with a reflexive pronoun, two other types of pairs. The first verb pair töten/sterben (kill/die) are suppletive verbs, i.e. consisting of two different lexical items. 18 The second verb pair versenken/sinken

(sinktr/sinkintr) is “only diachronically related”, since “versenken is a prefixed form of senken ‘sinktr’, which is in turn a causative form of sinken ‘sinkintr’” (Piñón 2001: 277). Piñón (2001: 278) draws two conclusions on the reflexive construction on the basis of these alternating verb pairs in German. First, he infers that the reflexive marker sich is not the only trigger that distinguishes between the two constructions of the ergativec alternation (Piñón 2001: 278). Second, he concludes that “sich (when it appears) derives an inchoative verb [ERG1] from a causative-inchoative one [ERG2], and yet this is at odds with the claim made by the traditional model that the order of semantic derivation is precisely the other way around” (Piñón 2001: 278).

17 See §4.2: ‘German translation strategies’, 59-60 18 Cf. Baron (1974) in §2.5.3.2: ‘Causative constructions’, pp. 31-35

2.5.5.4 Periphrastic construction with lassen

Although the periphrastic, causativizing construction with lassen is not a translation strategy of my set English ergativec verbs, I will discuss this construction, as it is an important causative structure in German. Two periphrastic construction with lassen should be distinguished: the causative (Kausativ), illustrated in (64a) and (64b) and the causative- passive (Kausativpassiv), illustrated in (65) (Gunkel: 2003: 175).

(64) a. Ich lasse Karl den Rasen mähen. (I make Karl mow the lawn) b. Ich lasse die Milch überkochen. (I let the milk boil over) (Gunkel: 2003: 175, 4-2a-b) (65) Ich lasse den Rasen (von Karl) mähen. (I have the lawn mown by Karl) (Gunkel: 2003: 175, 4-3)

Gunkel (2003: 175) identifies two types of causative interpretations. First, (64a) can be interpreted as a as “Ich veranlasse, dass Karl den Rasen mäht.” Second, it can be interpreted as a permissive causative, which can be paraphrased with “Ich lasse zu, dass Karl den Rasen maht.”

3 Methodology

As a first step in an investigation of how English ergativec verbs are represented in Dutch and German, I opted for a descriptive analysis of the language data rather than the user data, focusing on dictionary data in a quantitative approach. The data I needed to consider first had to be narrowed down in order to obtain a homogenous and manageable set of verbs. I decided to start from those English ergativec verbs that are derived from an adjective by means of causativizer –en as the starting point of my contrastive research.

I collected the deadjectival ergativec verbs in English on the basis of two works, a reference grammar and a diachronic study. The first work I used was the Collins COBUILD Grammar Patterns by Gill Francis, Susan Hunston and Elizabeth Manning, which presents approximately 600 ergativec verbs in English, classified on the basis of their distribution and semantics (Francis et al. 1996). To verify the completeness of this sample of verbs, I used the study ‘Valency changes in the history of English’ by Van Gelderen, carried out in 2011. Van Gelderen (2011) focuses on causativizers in the history of English, as the aim of her study is to investigate valence changes and the rising frequency of labile verbs in English. She lists the English verbs ending in the causativizer – en, according to Earle (1880:291), Skeat (1892: 275-276) and Levin & Hovav (1995: 96) in order to show the productivity of this suffix. The corpus by Francis et al. showed to be more complete, since it included, next to the base forms, prepositional variants of the base verbs as well. I did not include those prepositional verbs for two reasons. First, I chose not to focus on those verbs in this research, because I wanted to focus on simple verbs in English and their equivalents in Dutch and German. However, I believe that taking into account prepositional verbs as well, would be useful in further research concerning ergativityc. Second, the translation of prepositional verbs was usually not available in the dictionary I used. The comparison of the samples in Francis et al. 1996 and Van Gelderen 2011 decreased the chance of errors, since the two sets of verbs gathered in those sources are based on different criteria. Whereas Francis et al.’s aim is to give an exhaustive list of ergativec verbs in general, Van Gelderen lists all deadjectival verbs ending in causativizer – en.

For the Dutch translations of the English ergativec verbs, I used the translating dictionary Van Dale Elektronische Grote Woordenboeken, version 5.0, 2009. In order to

44 obtain the German translations of the English ergativec verbs, I combined two translating dictionaries: the Collins Dictionary19 and the Oxford Dictionary20, both available online. 21 In his study ‘Non Alternating Argument Structures: The Causative/Inchoative Alternation in Dictionaries’, Montemagni (1994: 354) states that:

Currently available dictionaries provide an undoubtedly rich source of lexical information, but often omit or do not make explicit salient syntactic and semantic properties of lexical items. This is also the case of argument structure alternations holding for the same verb

Fontenelle acknowledges this problem as well and he adds that ergativityc is not plain in dictionaries because they adopt a splitting strategy, i.e. dictionaries will treat a prototypical ergativec verb by distinguishing between all the transitive senses and all the intransitive senses (Fontenelle 1996: 212). An instance of this splitting strategy in the Van Dale dictionary is given in (66).

(66) to break a. (intransitive verb) 1. dichtgaan 2. aflopen 3. naderen 4. slaags raken

b. (transitive verb) 1. dichtmaken 2. besluiten 3. dichter bij elkaar brengen 4. insluiten 5. naderen 6. afmaken

19 http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary 20 http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english 21 The raw data can be found in ‘Appendix 1: Dutch primary data’, pp. 83-86 and ‘Appendix 2: German primary data’, pp. 87-89

Both the Oxford Dictionary and the Collins Dictionary use this splitting strategy. An instance of the splitting strategy in the Collins Dictionary for the verb ‘to break’ is given in (67).

(67) to break a. (transitive verb) 1. brechen, zerbrechen, kaputt schlagen, einschlagen, aufbrechen 2. kaputt machen 3. brechen, verletzen 4. unterbrechen 5. ritzen, durchbrechen 6. zureiten, brechen 7. kleinkriegen, mürbemachen, brechen, entziffern, durchbrechen 8. dämpfen 9. ausbrechen aus 10. mitteilen

b. (intransitive verb) 1. brechen, zerreiβen, kaputtgehen, zerbrechen 2. kaputtgehen 3. von etw abbrechen 4. eine Pause machen 5. umschlagen 6. zusammenbrechen 7. sich brechen 8. anbrechen, los brechen 9. brechen 10. bekannt werden, ans Licht kommen 11. seine (Un)kosten decken 12. anstoßen

From the information available in the dictionary, one can distil some essential information for the representation of ergativityc. In the case of the Dutch translation of to

46 break, the alternation is presented by the opposition gaan versus maken in the verbs dichtgaan (66a.1) and dichtmaken (66b.1). In addition to this strategy, Dutch has the verb naderen at its disposal, which is ergativec since it is found in both transitive (66a.3) sense and intransitive (66b.5) sense. The German translations shows the opposition between intransitive sich brechen (67b.7) and brechen (67a.1). Next to this strategy, German has the verb zerbrechen (67b.1), which functions both in the transitive and intransitive construction. The raw data of Dutch is listed in Appendix 1, the raw data of German can be found in Appendix 2. From these data, I excluded three types of patterns that appeared in the Dutch and German translations. Firstly, I did not select those translations that are very narrow in meaning in that they are restricted to a particular profession or other specific context of use, instances are shown in (68) and (69) for Dutch and (70) for German.

(68) sharpen (met een halve toon) verhogen (Br. Eng. muziek) (69) shorten (scheepsvaart) minderen (zeil) (70) strengthen (currency, market) festigen

Secondly, I did not include translations that were used in a metaphorical sense, e.g. (71)- (72).

(71) awaken uit de droom helpen (72) flatten (town) dem Erdboden gleichmachen

Lastly, I did not include those verbs, for which only a transitive or intransitive sense was available, as the ergativec alternation was not clear in that case. It was usually the intransitive construction that was absent both in Dutch, as is illustrated in (73)-(74) and in German (75)-(76).

(73) deafen (transitive verb) 1. doof maken, verdoven 2. overstemmen, verdoven 3. geluiddicht maken, isoleren

(74) neaten (transitive verb) 1. net, netjes maken, opruimen (75) madden (transitive verb) 1. ärgern 2. fuchsen (76) sharpen (transitive verb) 1. schleifen 2. spitzen 3. schärfen

However, when a verb meaning is only available in a transitive or intransitive use, but can be seen as a specific sense of an alternating use, I have included it in the sample. There is one example where this is the case, viz. the verb darken (77). One of its intransitive senses is translated as betrekken, bewolkt worden. This sense of the verb does not have a transitive alternant, due to the specific meaning, however, this meaning can be seen as a specific version of donker(der) worden, which does have the transitive alternant donker(der) maken.

(77) darken a. onvergankelijk werkwoord 1. donker(der) worden 2. vertroebelen 3. betrekken, bewolkt worden b. onovergankelijk werkwoord 1. donker(der) maken

When the sample was collected,22 I divided the Dutch and German translations into several categories and obtained the same possible translation strategies in both languages: expressions with a verb + adjective, verbs with prefixes, deadjectival verbs, reflexive verbs, verbs that appeared in both constructions of the alternation, and one remaining group. These results can be found in Appendix 3 for Dutch and in Appendix 4 for German.

22 The results can be found in ‘Appendix 3: Dutch results’, pp.89-93 and ‘Appendix 4: German results’, pp. 94-96.

This quantitative approach has major advantages for linguistic research. Thoutenhoofd for instance mentions that it “would lead to greater levels of methodological rigour and so enhance the scientific status to the discipline” (Thoutenhoofd 2007: 2). I decided to combine the purely quantitative approach of the dictionary data with a qualitative aspect. To illustrate the findings, I used instances from Opus - The open parallel corpus.23 The value of this corpus lies in the fact that it provides translated texts in both English-Dutch and English-German.

23 The corpus can be consulted online via: http://opus.lingfil.uu.se/.

4 Analysis and discussion

4.1 Dutch translation strategies

4.1.1 General

In Figure 1, the representation of ergativec verbs in Dutch is displayed. I calculated this distribution by first discriminating the Dutch ergative verbs, regardless of their internal structure, from the other strategies. Afterwards, I considered the other strategies in Dutch. What is striking, is the occurrence of two main trends. First, the English verb is in 65% of the cases represented in Dutch by a verb that contains a prefix or by a verb combined with an adjective. Second, only a minority of the Dutch verbs have the same properties as in English: only 12% of the Dutch verbs were found in both alternating constructions and only 4% of all verbs were derived from an adjective. I will concentrate on the translating possibilities for Dutch and discuss them separately.24

15% Verb with adjective

4% 31% Verb with prefix Reflexive verb 12% Ergative verb

4% Deadjectival verb

Other 34%

Figure 1. Representation of Dutch translations

4.1.2 Prefixed verbs

As shown in Figure 1, out of all the translation mechanisms, the main pattern consists of verbs, composed with a prefix (34%).

24 The content and structure of §4.1: ‘Dutch translation strategies’ is based on my BA paper ‘A contrastive study of a set of ergative verbs in English and Dutch’

4% 15% Verb with prefix Reflexive verb 12% 18% Ergative verb 4% Deadjectival verb 31% Other 7% Comparative form Positive form 6% 34% Both

Figure 2. Distribution of prefixes in Dutch

In Figure 2, the distribution of the most frequent prefixes in the Dutch translations is shown. Note that the prefix ver– is the most frequent one, as it occurs in exactly 50% of all prefixed verbs. As already discussed in the literature review,25 Van de Beld argues that ver– derives verbs from adjectives or nouns, but that the derivation from an adjective with ver– is rather rare (Van de Beld: 2010: 43; 48). It is significant that, although Van de Beld claims that ver-derivation from adjectives is rather rare in general, the prefix ver–appears to be the most frequently used prefix in the current research. Ver-verbs which are derived from adjectives in my data set are shown in (78).

(78) verblinden, verbreden, zich verbreden, verdichten, verdiepen, zich verdiepen, verdikken, verdonkeren, verduisteren, zich verfrissen, verhaasten, verharden, verhelderen, verhevigen, verhogen, verlagen, verlengen, verlevendigen, verlichten, verminderen, verscherpen, zich verscherpen, verslappen, laten verslappen, versnellen, versomberen, versterken, verstevigen, verstijven, vertederen, vertroebelen, doen vertroebelen, vervagen, doen vervagen, verzachten, verzwakken

The only ver-verb in my data set that is not derived from an adjective is verhaasten (hasten). According to the Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, 26 verhaasten is derived from the verb haasten (hasten).

25 See §2.5.4.2: ‘Verbs with prefix –ver’, pp. 36-37 26 This verb is not included in the etymological dictionary EWN (Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands).

Van de Beld furthermore argues that ver-verbs derived from an adjective, “are ungrammatical, if they are derived from a closed scale adjective, which allows modifiers such as bijna (almost) and zo goed als (as good as) […] and that do not allow a comparative form” (Van de Beld 2010: 48). This claim is confirmed in the set of ver-verbs focused on in this study. For instance, verlevendigen (to liven), the comparative form of the adjective, i.e. levendiger (more lively) is displayed as grammatically correct (79), whereas the periphrastic constructions bijna levendig and zo goed als levendig are not regarded as correct (80).

(79) Wij willen graag verder gaan om de debatten levendiger te maken en verschillende problemen uit de weg te ruimen.

(80) verlevendigen

Almost all ver-verbs that appear in my sample are derived from an adjective, for which a comparative form exists. However, the verb verminderen (to lessen) in (81) shows that the statement of Van de Beld should be nuanced. This ver-verb is composed differently, since it is derived from the comparative form minder (less).

(81) verminderen weinig

The verb verdonkeren (to darken) appears to be an exception to Van de Beld’s claim that ver-verbs are “ungrammatical, if they are derived from closed-scale adjectives“ (Van de Beld 2010: 48), as illustrated in (82).

(82) verdonkeren < donker donkerder bijna donker zo goed als donker

The utterances bijna donker and zo goed als donker are grammatical. Following Van de Beld, this would lead to the ungrammaticality of the ver-verb verdonkeren. In addition to verdonkeren, the verbs verdichten, verharden, verlichten, and verstevigen are other instances of verbs that allow the above-mentioned modifiers. Another interesting prefix is the prefix be–, since a difference in distribution is noticeable: be– is more frequently attached to transitive verbs than to intransitive verbs.

The verbs with this prefix that occur in intransitive clauses on the one hand and transitive clauses on the other hand, are displayed in (83).

(83 ) a. intransitive: betrekken, bedaren

b. transitive: bevochtigen, bevestigen, bemoedigen, bezielen, bedroeven, beperken

The distribution of be-verbs in the data confirms the characterization of be–, found in the literature on Dutch morphology, as a “causative” (e.g. Lieber & Baayen 1993) or “transitivizing” prefix (e.g. Laffut 1998). The more frequent occurrence of prefixed verbs in the transitive construction is noticeable in the other groups of prefixes (op–, be–, ont–, af–) as well, but more data is needed to confirm this trend.27

4.1.3 Attributive construction

A second translation strategy is the attributive one, in which a verb is combined with an adjective. In this major translation strategy (31%), the adjective is combined with maken (to make) in the transitive construction and with worden (to become) in the intransitive construction. An illustration of the Dutch intransitive translation of the verb to blacken is presented in (84), the transitive translation is given in (85).

(84) English: However, low-fat yoghurt does not rot your teeth, blacken your lungs or put you on a ventilator. Dutch: Van magere yoghurt gaan je tanden niet rotten, worden je longen niet zwart en hoef je niet aan een beademingsapparaat.

(85) English: In the times in which we live, it is very easy to blacken the reputation of public figures. Dutch: In de tijden waarin we leven, is het maar al te gemakkelijk om de reputatie van openbare figuren zwart te maken.

27 Of all prefixed verbs [93], 45 verbs are found in intransitive senses, as opposed to 64 verbs in transitive senses.

Although most Dutch translations correspond to the pattern worden + adjective and maken + adjective, some deviations exist and are highlighted in (86).

(86) awaken: zich bewust worden bewust maken darken: treurig worden triest stemmen sadden: somber worden somber stemmen sicken: het beu/moe worden moe maken tighten: strakker worden strak trekken toughen: taai worden taai doen worden

As mentioned earlier, the attributive group is the largest group: out of 41 English ergativec verbs, 34 verbs have an attributive translation in Dutch. Next to the high frequency of the combination of a verb with an adjective in general, it is often the only translation possibility that is available in Dutch. The frequency of this pattern in Dutch leads to a substantial difference between English and Dutch. In English, the focus of the ergativec verb lies on the process which is denoted by the verb. This contrasts with Dutch, in which the attributive construction is a very frequent strategy. Due to this difference in representation of ergativityc, one can argue that the focus in Dutch is shifted towards the result of the process denoted by the verb (maken or worden) in combination with the adjective. This difference in focus is shown in the illustrations (87)-(89) by means of the verbs to quicken and to lengthen.

(87) English: Firstly, we have entered a new phase of competition, and the pace of structural change is set to quicken still further. Dutch: Ten eerste: we bevinden ons in een nieuwe concurrentiefase, en de snelheid waarmee structurele veranderingen zich zullen voordoen zal nog groter worden.

(88) English: Mr President, with the enlargement of the European Union the border we share with Russia will lengthen and we will have several new neighbours. Dutch: Mijnheer de Voorzitter , met de uitbreiding van de Europese Unie wordt onze gemeenschappelijke grens met Rusland langer en krijgen wij verscheidene nieuwe buren.

(89) English: Apart from casting doubt on democratic control, such an arrangement would lengthen the reporting period and jeopardize the recently restored co-ordination of the work of STOA with that of the committees. Dutch: Die bepaling zou niet alleen het democratisch beheer op de helling zetten, maar zou ook de termijn voor de indiening van verslagen langer maken en de coördinatie van de werkzaamheden van STOA met die van de commissies aantasten.

As the construction worden/maken + adjective focuses more on the result than the

English ergativec verb, one would expect that comparatives would occur in this construction (groter worden/maken), since both the constructions worden/maken + adjective and the comparative highlight the result of the state, denoted by the adjective. This hypothesis is confirmed in the results: in the dictionary, the comparative form is given in 18% of all adjectives, and in almost one quarter of all adjectives, both the positive and the comparative form are listed. This is shown in Figure 3.

Reflexive verb 22% Ergative verb 58% Deadjectival verb on -en

6% 47% Other Comparative form 24 % Positive form 18% 18% Both 7%

Figure 3. Distribution of comparatives in Dutch

4.1.4 Ergativec verbs

Only 12% of the Dutch verbs corresponding to English ergativec en-verbs occur in both t and ERG2 and can be thus labelled as ergativec. The assertion of van Gelderen, that English has more labile verbs than the other Germanic languages is thus confirmed in my data set (Van Gelderen 2011: 114).28

Striking is the frequent occurrence of ver-verbs within the group of Dutch ergativec verbs. Figure 4 shows that 75% of all ergativec verbs consist of ver-verbs. Although there

28 See §2.5.2: ‘Contrastive approaches so far’, p.22; Cf. §5.2: ‘Hypothesis’, 78-80

55 seems to be a link between this prefix and the ergativityc of the verb, De Vries remarks that prefix ver– can attach to both ergativec and transitive verbs and he adds that ergativec verbs remain ergativec after the prefixation with ver– (De Vries 2010: 48;50). These statements question the direct relation between ergativityc and ver– since verbs can, according to De

Vries, already be ergativec before the prefixation by ver– and can be still transitive after the prefixation by ver–. In order to investigate function of prefix ver–, more detailed research is needed. One question that seems worth exploring is whether the group of Dutch ergativec verbs is expanding, as is the case in English (Van Gelderen 2011: 107). This question as well requires further research and I believe that further research might be useful to consider the productivity of prefix ver– in relation to ergativityc in Dutch.

4% 4% Verb with adjective 15% Verb with prefix Reflexive verb 34% 3% 12% Deadjectival verb 9% Other Prefix ver 31% Other

Figure 4. Ergativec verbs in Dutch

4.1.5 Deadjectival verbs

A small set of Dutch verbs is composed in the same way as the corresponding English verb, i.e. derived from an adjective. This set, which forms 4% of the Dutch verbs, is listed in (90).

(90) bleken, effenen, harden, klaren, korten, lichten, pletten, ruwen, scherpen, snellen, witten, zwarten

Most deadjectival verbs occur either in the intransitive clause or in the transitive clauses, with a slight preference for the last construction. As only two of the deadjectival verbs, zwarten (blacken) and scherpen (sharpen) occur in both constructions of the ergativec alternation, I do not believe that the suffix –en has the same causativizing function in Dutch as it has in English.

4.1.6 Reflexive verbs

The set containing Dutch reflexive verbs appears to be interesting, as there is a clear contrast between the number of occurrences in the intransitive sense and the transitive sense. Almost all reflexive verbs occur in the intransitive construction, because reflexive verbs cannot take a direct object (Abraham 1986: 1).29 In some cases it is possible to use the verb transitively, without the reflexive pronoun and with an object. In (91), the English verb freshen up is represented by the transitive, non-reflexive verb opfrissen, in (92) we find the intransitive, reflexive verb zich opfrissen.

(91) English: Mr President, Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen, the Finnish Presidency will freshen up a tired EU. Dutch: Mijnheer de Voorzitter, mijnheer de premier, dames en heren, het Finse voorzitterschap zal de vermoeide Europese Unie opfrissen. (92) English: Where can I go and freshen up? Dutch: Waar kan ik me even opfrissen?

4.1.7 Other constructions

doen + verb 44% 48% laten + verb

Other periphrastic constructions

Figure 5. Periphrastic constructions in Dutch

Some patterns within the remaining group can be distinguished. A first pattern consists of the transitive constriction that combined the verb doen with an infinitive. This construction

29 However, the verb zich verfrissen (‘to freshen, to freshen up’) appears in both constructions according to the Van Dale dictionary and the verb zich opfrissen (‘to freshen, to freshen up’) is only represented as a transitive verb. No occurrences of these reflexive verbs with a direct object are found in the database Opus, The open parallel corpus, neither were contextual examples provided in the Van Dale dictionary. The representation of these verbs as transitive in Van Dale might be based on a different interpretation of the nature of the reflexive pronoun in the grammatical pattern (i.e. where it is represented as constituting a direct object itself). A extensive discussion of the theoretical status of reflexives in Dutch is beyond the scope of this study, a brief discussion on this topic can be find in §2.5.4.3: ‘Reflexive verbs’, pp 37-39.

57 is the most frequent pattern, as it occurs in almost 50% of the translations in the remaining group. In the corresponding intransitive construction, the verb remains without doen. The transitive-intransitive alternation is shown in illustrations (93)-(94) by means of the English verb heighten.

(93) English: We hope that both sides can find a mutually acceptable basis for a resumption of peaceful dialogue and avoid unilateral measures, which might heighten tensions. Dutch: Wij hopen dat beide partijen een basis voor hervatting van een vreedzame dialoog kunnen vinden die voor beide zijden aanvaardbaar is, en dat men eenzijdige maatregelen vermijdt die de spanningen zouden kunnen doen toenemen.

(94) English: If, as has already been the case with the transposition of other directives, Germany, the 'model pupil', goes its own way, this would heighten the distortions in competition between the national water industries in the EU still further, thus running counter to the aim of the directive, which is to create a uniform framework for Europe's water industry. Dutch: Wanneer de voorbeeldige leerling Duitsland, zoals reeds bij de omzetting van andere richtlijnen het geval was, zijn eigen weg gaat, zal de concurrentieverstoring tussen de nationale waterhuishoudingen in de EU nog toenemen en indruisen tegen de doelstellingen van de richtlijn, namelijk een uniform kader voor de waterhuishouding in Europa te scheppen.

In line with Verhagen & Kemmer's (1997) claim that the causative doen is, more frequently used with an inanimate causer than laten, we find the inanimate causer eenzijdige maatregelen in (93).30 A second regular construction in Dutch consists of the combination laten and an infinitive in the transitive construction. As is the case in the above-mentioned construction with doen, the verb without laten remains in the intransitive constriction. The alternation is

30 See Verhagen & Kemmer (1997) in: §2.5.4.4 ‘Periphrastic construction with doen/laten’, pp. 39-40

58 displayed by means of the Dutch verb vieren in (95)-(96) for the transitive construction and in (97)-(98) for the intransitive construction.

(95) Het eerste is uiteraard dat wij de teugels niet kunnen laten vieren. (96) Ook bij de gezinshereniging mogen we het touw niet laten vieren. (97) Mythes over de rol van alcohol en drugs vieren nog altijd hoogtij. (98) In de randgebieden van talrijke steden, waar door gebrek aan werkgelegenheid en sociale en culturele activiteiten sociale uitsluiting is ontstaan, vieren vandalisme en criminaliteit hoogtij.

In both (95) and (96), we find animate causers (wij), which again supports Verhagen & Kemmer’s claim (1997: 63; 105)

4.2 German translation strategies

4.2.1 General

Figure 6 shows the distribution of the German mechanisms that are used to represent the

English ergativec verbs. In some categories, an overlap between different German strategies appeared. In order to obtain the representation in Figure 6, I assigned every German translation to each suitable strategy, as I did for the Dutch results. An illustration is the German verb sich verbreitern (broaden), which I considered as both a verb, composed with a prefix and as a reflexive verb. I will discuss these ambiguous occurrences further on. Striking in the German distribution is the occurrence of two major strategies that account for almost 70% of all occurrences, i.e. ergativec verbs translated by means of a verb with prefix or with a periphrastic construction of a verb and an adjective. Another important finding is the near absence of ergativec verbs in German. There is only one verb, aufheitern (brighten), that can be used in both ERG1 and ERG2.

6% 7% 2% verb with adjective 30% verb with prefix 16% reflexive verbs ergative verbs deadjectival verb other

39% Figure 6. Representation of German translations

4.2.2 Prefixed verbs

The main strategy in German (39%) consists of verbs composed of a stem and a prefix. These prefixed verbs appear in both the transitive and intransitive construction, with a small predominance of the transitive construction (57%) over the intransitive construction. However, the majority of the intransitive prefixed verbs in (70%) are reflexive. These reflexive verbs with prefixes are shown in (99).

(99) sich aufheitern, sich aufhellen, sich auflockern, sich beeilen, sich beschleunigen, sich verbreitern, sich verdichten sich verdunkeln, sich verfinstern, sich verhärten sich vertiefen, sich verringern, sich verstärken

2% 7% 6% verb with adjective 10% reflexive verbs 16% 4% ergative verbs 38% 3% deadjectival verb other 15% 4% prefix ver 31% 2% prefix auf

Figure 7. Distribution of prefixes in German

Within the category of the prefixed verbs, the verbs with ver- are the most frequent ones, as shown in Figure 7. These ver-verbs appear in both the intransitive and transitive construction. However, it is important to note that every intransitive ver-verb is reflexive as well. Illustration (100) shows that the German reflexive pronoun sich distinguishes

60 between the non-reflexive ver-verb in the transitive construction and the reflexive ver-verb 31 in the intransitive construction.

(100) transitive intransitive English verb verbreitern sich verbreitern broaden verdunkeln sich verdunkeln darken verfinstern sich verfinstern darken vertiefen sich vertiefen deepen verringern sich verringern lessen

An illustration of the German translation of the English ergativec verb deepen is given in (101) for the transitive construction and in (102) for the intransitive construction.

(101) English: The EU must continue and deepen its relations with these countries and contribute, through a real partnership, to the fight against poverty, to the development of the awareness of environmental problems, to the involvement of civil societies and to a better awareness of the social dimension of the problems encountered. German: Die Europäische Union muß [sic] ihre Beziehungen mit diesen Staaten weiter pflegen und vertiefen und mit Hilfe einer wirklichen Partnerschaft zur Bekämpfung der Armut, zur Entwicklung ihrer Sensibilität gegenüber Umweltproblemen, zur Einbeziehung ihrer zivilen Gesellschaft und zu einer zunehmenden Berücksichtigung der sozialen Dimension ihrer Probleme beitragen.

(102) English: Any inability by an education system to train its pupils to use or master these technologies would consequently further deepen social inequalities, or even create them. German: Wenn das Bildungswesen nicht in der Lage wäre, die Schüler für die Nutzung bzw. Beherrschung dieser Techniken zu rüsten, so hätte das zur Folge, dass qoziale Ungleichheiten sich vertiefen oder neu entstehen.

31 Cf. §4.2.6: ‘Reflexive verbs’, pp. 66-69

In the translation of the English deadjectival ergativec verbs in -en, the reflexive pronoun sich distinguishes between the transitive verb and the intransitive equivalent. This supports the claim made by Wunderlich (1997) and Smolka et al. (2009 that the German prefix ver- does not operate as a causativizer.32 Another frequent prefix is auf, which appears as much in the transtive construction as in the intransitive construction. Within the intransitive group of auf-verbs, both reflexive verbs (50%) and non-reflexive verbs (50%) appear. Therefore, the distribution of auf-verbs is different from the distribution of ver-verbs, as only reflexive ver-verbs appear in the intransitive construction. The last prefix I will discuss is an. Striking is the fact that this prefix is restricted to the transitive construction in contrast to prefixes be-, ein- and er- that appear in both constructions (103).

(103) anfeuchten anspannen anziehen schwarz anmalen

The an-verbs are not as clear-cut in their formation as the earlier discussed prefixed verbs: schwarz anmalen (blacken) belongs both to the prefixed verbs as to the category with periphrastic constructions. The verb anfeuchten is deadjectival and the verbs anspannen and anziehen are both deverbal.

4.2.3 Attributive construction

A second major strategy in the translation of the English ergativec verbs consists of a periphrastic, attributive construction in which an adjective and a verb are combined. In the default construction, the adjective appears, either in its positive or comparative form, with the German verbs machen (to make) in the transitive construction and werden (to become) in the intransitive construction. This construction is the equivalent of the Dutch attributive construction that links the verbs maken and worden with an adjective. 33 The German intransitive translations of the verbs lengthen and blacken is illustrated in (104) and (105).

32 See §4.2.2: ‘Prefixed verbs‘, pp. 60-62 33 See §4.1.3: ‘Attributive construction’; pp. 53-55

(104) English: If we applaud solutions such as this one, in which a dictator attempts to manipulate supposedly democratic institutions, we will be helping to lengthen the list of countries governed by regimes which are repugnant to us in Europe but which we cynically find acceptable in the case of Africa. German: Wenn wir einem Kuhhandel wie diesem, mit dem ein Diktator versucht, die vorgeblich demokratischen Institutionen zu manipulieren, auch noch Beifall klatschen, dann tragen wir dazu bei, daß die Liste der Länder mit Regimes, die uns in Europa zwar abstoßen, die wir aber zynischerweise für Afrika hinnehmen, immer länger wird. (105) English: Unlike the rapporteur, I think it is necessary to broaden the social dialogue in order to rally the troops . German: Ich glaube, anders als der Berichterstatter, daß [sic] der soziale Dialog breiter werden muß , wenn ein markanter Einsatz erreicht werden soll.

The German transitive translation of the verb lighten is illustrated in (106).

(106) English: It is true that dual-denomination notes or coins would have required thought at an earlier stage and for that there would have had to be a real concern to lighten the burden on private individuals. German: Natürlich hätte man an die doppelte Bezeichnung auf den Scheinen und Münzen früher denken müssen, aber das hätte vorausgesetzt, dass man wirklich gewillt ist, es den Privatpersonen leichter zu machen.

This periphrastic construction in German highlights the result of the process which is denoted by the verb, whereas in English the process itself is highlighted.34 This focus on the result is highlighted by means of the adjective which appears in 37% of all occurrences in the comparative form as well. The constructions with comparatives are listed in (107).

34 Cf. the attributive construction in Dutch in §4.1.3: ‘Attributive construction’, pp. 53-55

(107) transitive intransitive English länger machen harden heller machen lighten leichter machen lighten kürzer werden shorten weicher machen weicher werden soften sanfter machen soften dicker machen dicker werden thicken

In some periphrastic constructions, the verb in the pattern adjective + machen/werden deviates. These deviations are highlighted in (108).

(108) blacken schwarz anmalen fasten festmachen flatten flach drücken loosen locker lassen sadden traurig stimmen straighten gerade ziehen

2% verb with prefix 7% reflexive verbs 6% 16% ergative verbs 19% deadjectival verb 30% other 3% comparative 39% 8% positive

Figure 8. Distribution of comparatives in German

4.2.4 Ergativec verbs

As mentioned earlier on, only one English verb, brighten, can be translated by means of a

German ergativec verb aufheitern. This verb occurs in both ERG1 and in ERG2. However, the ergativec translation strategy of the verb aufheitern is not the only option. In ERG1 is the reflexive verb sich aufheitern available as well.

4.2.5 Deadjectival verbs

A minor translation strategy consist of verbs that are composed in the same way as the

English ergativec verbs: 7% of the German translations are derived from an adjective with the suffix –en, without a prefix. The verb lockern is an exception, as the in the suffix has disappeared. These deadjectival verbs are shown in (116) and occur only in the transitive construction.

(116) härten, kürzen, lockern, röten, schärfen, schwärzen, stärken, weißen

Striking in this set of deadjectival verbs is the occurrence of an umlaut in all verbs with vowels that can obtain an umlaut, excepts for the verb lockern. Hieble (1957: 272- 274) distinguishes fourteen functions of the umlaut in German, one of which is the causative, found in weak verbs like tränken (trinken), stärken (stark), schwächen (schwach) etc. Almost all contemporary German verbs with umlaut are the result of the following palatal element , <ī> or in Old High German (Twaddell 1938: 177). This palatalized element in Old High German was the suffix –jan,35 which characterized the causative verbs (Hieble 1957: 274). The palatalized element affected the previous consonant or consonant cluster and consequently palatalized the previous vowel, changing it into a more closed and fronted vowel (Hieble 1957: 272; Wunderlich 1997: 58; Twaddell 1938: 177). These systematic mutations in the vowel quality were not immediately represented in the German orthography, except for the change of the short . In was only in Middle High German, after the causativizing suffix –jan had disappeared, that the graphemes were adapted in accordance to the vowel quality (Twaddell 1938: 177). Wunderlich (1997: 58) discusses causative verbs and states that almost all deadjectival verbs are causative and notices that these verbs are often prefixed. This is proven in my data set in which the prefixed ver-verbs are all derived from adjectives.36 Most of the prefixed deadjectival verbs are derived from an adjective which is gradable (117). Only a few ver-verbs are derived from the comparative form, as shown in (118).

35 Cf. the causativizing suffix –jan in Old English in §2.5.3.1: ‘Causativizing affixes’, p. 29 36 However, these prefixed ver-verbs that are derived from an adjective are not included in the category deadjectival verbs, since they are all derived from adjectives.

(117) (sich) verdunkeln < dunkel dunkler (sich) vertiefen < tief tiefer sich verhärten < hart härter verkürzen < kurz kürzer (sich) verstärken < stark stärker sich verdichten < dicht dichter (sich) verfinstern < finster finstrer

(118) (sich) verbreitern breit

Wunderlich (1997: 59) believes that the structure of these verb is arbitrary, in that they are sometimes derived from the positive form and sometimes from the comparative form of the adjective. According to Wunderlich (1997: 59) the derivation of a comparative form is superfluous, because the interpretation of gradable adjectives is always relative. The auf-verbs resemble the ver-verbs in their structure. They are derived from an adjective, shown in (119), with the verb aufwecken as an exception. However, these auf- verbs are derived from positive adjectives that are not gradable, in contrast to the ver- verbs, which are derived from gradable adjectives.

(119) (sich) aufheitern heiter auffrischen frisch (sich) aufhellen hell (sich) auflockern locker aufrauen rau aufweichen weich aufwachen wach aufwecken /

4.2.6 Reflexive verbs

In 16% of the translations, the English ergativec verb is represented in German by means of a reflexive verb. Striking is the high frequency of prefixed reflexive verbs; Almost 79% of

66 all reflexive verbs are composed of a stem with prefix.37 In the category of the reflexive verbs as well, the prefix ver is the most frequent one: 60% of all prefixed reflexive verbs are composed with this prefix. The reflexive verbs are limited in their distribution: they only occur in the intransitive construction, as illustrated in (13). When they occur in the transitive construction, the same verb appears without the reflexive pronoun (109).

(109) English: There are good reasons for assuming that this report, as well as similar legislative proposals, will further strengthen EU authorities such as the European Food Safety Authority ( EFSA ). German: Diese Fehlentwicklung ermöglichte es kriminellen Organisationen, die vor allem aus dem nichteuropäischen Ausland kommen, sich verstärkt auszubreiten und zu dezentralisieren.

(110) English: If we want targeted and effective projects which have a concrete and substantial impact in needy areas, we should first of all strengthen the initiatives designed to extend the means of disseminating information through modern communications technology. German: Wenn wir mit gezielten und wirksamen Projekten konkrete und bedeutende Ergebnisse erzielen wollen, dann müssen wir zunächst die Initiativen verstärken, durch die die Instrumente zur Verteilung und Information mittels moderner Kommunikationstechnologien vermehrt werden sollen.

Dauronienė (2007: 65) distinguishes two types of reflexive verbs. Verbs that belong to the first type are called real reflexive verbs (‘echte reflexive Verben’). In this category, the reflexive pronoun has anaphoric function, which means that it refers back to the subject of the verb and that it has no intrinsic meaning of its own. The second type of reflexives are called the unreal reflexives (‘unechte reflexive Verben’). In this construction, the reflexive pronoun functions as a complement. In this second category as well, the reflexive pronoun refers to the subject of the sentence. However, when the verbs occurs without the reflexive pronoun, the process denoted by the verb can also refer to someone or something

37 Cf. §4.2.2: ‘Prefixed verbs’, pp. 60-62

67 else. An illustration, that shows the distinct distribution of real and unreal reflexive verbs is provided in (111).

(111) unreal reflexive verb real reflexive verb sich verletzen sich schämen (to wound, to injure) (to be/feel ashamed) Er verletzt sich. Er schämt sich. Er verletzt die Ordnung/dich/... * Er schämt die Ordnung/dich/… (Dauronienė 2007: 65) (Dauronienė 2007: 65)

In my results, most of the reflexive verbs – listed in (112) – are unreal reflexives.

(112) sich aufhellen lighten sich auflockern loosen sich beschleunigen quicken sich lockern loosen sich mästen fatten sich spannen tauten sich verbreitern deepen sich verdichten thicken sich verdunkeln darken sich verhärten toughen sich verhärten harden sich verringern lessen sich verstärken strengthen sich vertiefen deepen

For these unreal reflexives, the same verbs without reflexive pronoun can be found in Opus. Examples are provided in (113) and (114).

(113) Wir sollten also unsere politische Berührungsfläche mit Rußland verbreitern, um die überraschenden Wendungen, die dort vonstatten gehen, besser verstehen zu können.

(We should therefore broaden the scope of our political contact with Russia, and, this would help us to understand the changes that take place there so unexpectedly.) (114) Will man vielleicht seine Website verdunkeln oder seine Kunden, die weiterhin Dateien von offshore-Internetseiten herunterladen, verfolgen (Would the site be blocked or would we prosecute the users who continued to download files from offshore sites?)

Only one verb occurs exclusively as a real reflexive verb in the Opus corpus, i.e. sich beeilen (hasten), shown in (115). This verb, as opposed to the unreal reflexive verbs, is in the online version of Duden, categorized as a reflexive verb.

(115) Wenn wir über die Kosten reden, beeilen Sie sich alle, um deutlich zu machen, daß Sie zu viel zahlen, zu wenig bekommen, mehr haben müssen! (If we talk about costs you all rush to point out that you pay too much, receive too little, and must have more!)

4.2.7 Other constructions

Next to the five mechanisms discussed so far, some remaining translations remain (116). These translations only occur in the transitive construction. In this category as well, we find an umlaut on the vowels in the verbs dämpfen, mästen and ärgern. Lastly, one complex verb construction (Funktionsverbgefüge) zur Ruh bringen, appears.

(116) spannen tauten wecken waken dämpfen dampen mästen fatten ärgern madden eilen hasten zur Ruh bringen quieten

4.3 Discussion and conclusion

In this section, I compare the Dutch and German translation strategies of the English ergativec verbs. Table 3 lists the translation strategies of Dutch and German next to each other.

Dutch German

ERG1 ERG2 ERG1 ERG2 Prefixed verbreden (broaden) doen vervagen (darken) sich verbreitern (broaden) verärgern (madden) verdichten (thicken) laten verslappen (loosen) sich verdichten (thicken) verbreitern (broaden) verbs verdikken (thicken) verblinden (darken) sich verdunkeln (darken) verdunkeln (darken) verdonkeren (darken) verbreden (broaden) sich verfinstern (darken) verfinstern (darken) verduisteren (darken) verdichten (thicken) sich verhärten (harden) verkürzen (shorten) verharden (harden) verdiepen (deepen) sich verhärten (toughen) verlängern (lengthen) verhevigen (heighten) verdikken (thicken) sich verringern (lessen) verringern (lessen) verminderen (lessen) verdonkeren (darken) sich verstärken (strengthen) verstärken (strentghen) verscherpen (scharpen) verduisteren (darken) sich vertiefen (deepen) vertiefen (deepen) verslappen (loosen) verhaasten (hasten) versomberen (darken) verharden (harden) verstevigen (stiffen) verhelderen (lighten) verstijven (stiffen) verhogen (heighten) vertederen (soften) verlagen (lessen) vertroebelen (darken) verlengen (lengthen) vervagen (darken) verlevendigen (quicken) verzwakken (sicken) verlichten (lighten) zich verbreden (broaden) verminderen (lessen) zich verdiepen (deepen) verscherpen (sharpen) zich verfrissen (freshen) versnellen (hasten) zich verscherpen (sharpen) versterken (heighten) versterken (strenghten) verstevigen (stiffen) verstevigen (strengthen) verstijven (stiffen) vertederen (soften) vertroebelen (darken) doen vertroebelen (darken) verzachten (soften) verzwakken (sichen) zich verfrissen (freshen) ontspannen (loosen) ontlasten (lighten) ontwaken (awaken) ontzilten (freshen) ontwaken (waken) ontzouten (freshen) bedaren (quieten) bedroeven (sadden) sich beeilen (hasten) befestigen (fasten) betrekken (darken) bemoedigen (hearten) sich beschleunigen (quicken) beruhigen (quieten) betrekken (sadden) beperken (lessen) beschleunigen (quicken) bevestigen (fasten) bevochtigen (dampen) bevochtigen (moisten) bezielen (quicken) aandikken (thicken) aandikken (thicken) anfeuchten (moisten) anspannen (tauten) aansterken (strengthen) aanhalen (tighten) anspannen (tauten) anziehen (tighten) anziehen (tighten) eindicken (thicken) schwarz anmahlen (blacken)

opbleken (whiten) doen opfleuren (freshen) auffrischen (freshen) aufheitern (brighten) opfleuren (freshen) doen opklaren (brighten) aufheitern (brighten) aufhellen (lighten) ophelderen (brighten) opfleuren (freshen) aufwachen (waken) auflockern (loosen) ophelderen (lighten) opfrissen (freshen) sich aufheitern (brighten) aufrauen (roughen) opklaren (brighten) opglanzen (brighten) sich aufhellen (lighten) aufwecken (waken) opklaren (lighten) ophogen (heighten) sich auflockern (loosen) aufweichen (soften) opwekken (waken) zich opfrissen (freshen)

afnemen (lessen) afkorten (shorten) erwachen (awaken) erfrischen (freshen) dichtgaan (fasten) afplatten (flatten) erwachen (waken) erleichtern (lighten) losgaan (loosen) afvlakken (flatten) toenemen (heighten) doen toenemen (heighten) toenemen (thicken) doen toenemen (thicken) losknopen (loosen) uitdiepen (deepen) vastbinden (fasten) vastmaken (fasten) vastsnoeren (tighten) vastzetten (fasten)

Attributive bedroefd worden (sadden) (meer) dof maken (flatten) breiter werden (broaden) dicker machen (thicken) bewolkt worden (darken) bewust maken (awaken) dichter werden (thicken) dunkel machen (darken) construction blind worden (darken) blind maken (darken) dick(er) werden (thicken) festmachen (fasten) breder worden (broaden) breder maken (broaden) dunkel werden (darken) gerade machen (straighten) dieper worden (deepen) dieper maken (deepen) dik worden (fatten) dik(ker) maken (fatten) fett werden (fatten) heller machen (lighten) dik(ker) worden (thicken) dik(ker) maken (thicken) frisch werden (freshen) krank machen (sicken) donker(der) worden (darken) donker(der) maken (darken) gerade werden (straighten) länger machen (lengthen) flauw worden (flatten) erger maken (heighten) hart werden (harden) leichter machen (lighten) gebonden worden (thicken) flauw(er) maken (flatten) hell werden (lighten) rau machen (roughen) gek worden (madden) gek maken (madden) krank werden (sicken) sanfter machen (soften) goedkoop/goedkoper worden (cheapen) goedkoop/ kürzer werden (shorten) schwarz machen (blacken) hard worden (harden) goedkoper maken (cheapen) het beu worden (sicken) hard maken (harden) länger werden (lengthen) steif machen (stiffen) hoger worden (heighten) hoog/hoger maken (heighten) rau werden (roughen) weich(er) machen (soften) ingewikkeld(er) worden (thicken) ingewikkeld(er) maken (thicken) sanft werden (soften) weiß machen (whiten) kort(er) worden (shorten) korter maken (shorten) steif werden (stiffen) langer worden (lengthen) langer maken (lengthen) weich(er) werden (soften) levend worden (quicken) levend maken (quicken) weiß werden (whiten) licht(er) worden (lighten) losser maken (loosen) los(ser) worden (loosen) moe maken (sicken) (meer) dof worden (flatten) onduidelijk maken (thicken) meer vlak worden (flatten) onduidelijk maken (darken) minder drukkend worden (lighten) rechtmaken (straighten) minder zilt worden (freshen) rood maken (redden) minder zout worden (freshen) ruw maken (coarsen) onduidelijk worden (darken) ruw maken (roughen) onduidelijk(er) worden (thicken) scherp(er) maken (sharpen) plat(ter) worden (flatten) somber stemmen (sadden) recht worden (straighten) sterk(er) maken (strengthen) rood worden (redden) stijf maken (stiffen) rustig worden (quieten) strak trekken (tighten) ruw worden (coarsen) taai doen worden (toughen) ruw worden (roughen) teder maken (soften) scherp(er) worden (sharpen) triest stemmen (darken) somber worden (sadden) verdrietig maken (sadden) sterk(er) worden (strengthen) vochtig maken (dampen) stijf/stijver worden (stiffen) wakker maken (awaken) strak worden (tauten) wakker maken (waken) strakker worden (tighten) woedend maken (madden) taai worden (toughen) zacht(er) maken (soften) treurig worden (darken) ziek maken (sicken) vertederd worden (soften) zwartmaken (blacken)

vet worden (fatten) vochtig worden (dampen) vochtig worden (moisten) wakker worden (awaken) wakker worden (waken) wit worden (whiten) woedend worden (madden) zacht(er) worden (soften) zich bewust worden (awaken) ziek worden (sicken) zwart worden (blacken)

zwarten (blacken) aufheitern (brighten) Ergativec verbreden (broaden) verbs verduisteren (darken) verdonkeren (darken) vertroebelen (darken) opfleuren (freshen) verharden (harden) verminderen (lessen) kalmeren (quieten) verscherpen (sharpen) verzwakken (sicken) vertederen (soften) verstijven (stiffen) verstevigen (stiffen) aandikken (thicken) verdikken (thicken) verdichten (thicken) scherpen (sharpen)

Deadjectival klaren (lighten) bleken (whiten) härten (harden) lichten (lighten) effenen (flatten) kürzen (shorten) verbs scherpen (sharpen) harden (harden) lockern (loosen) snellen (hasten) korten (shorten) röten (redden) zwarten (blacken) pletten (flatten) schärfen (sharpen) ruwen (roughen) schwärzen (blacken) scherpen (sharpen) stärken (strengthen) witten (whiten) wecken (awaken) zwarten (blacken) weißen (whiten)

Reflexive zich bewust worden (awaken) zich opfrissen (freshen) sich aufheitern (brighten) zich concentreren (thicken) zich verfrissen (freshen) sich aufhellen (lighten) verbs zich haasten (hasten) sich auflockern (loosen zich scherpen (sharpen) sich beeilen (hasten) zich spannen (tauten) sich beschleunigen (quicken) zich spannen (thighten) sich lockern (loosen) zich vasthechten (fasten) sich mästen (fatten) zich verbreden (broaden) sich röten (redden) zich verdiepen (deepen) sich spannen (tauten) zich verfrissen (freshen) sich verbreitern (broaden) zich verscherpen (sharpen) sich verdichten (thicken) sich verdunkeln (darken) sich verfinstern (darken) sich verhärten (harden) sich verhärten (toughen) sich verringern (lessen) sich verstärken (strengthen) sich vertiefen (deepen) sich zusammenziehen (tighten) Other een vaste vorm aannemen (harden) bevrijden van een druk (lighten) schwarz anmahlen zur Ruh bringen (quieten) er frisser gaan uitzien (freshen) een vaste vorm geven (harden) constructions gaan glanzen (lighten) laten verslappen (loosen) in kracht toenemen (strengthen) laten vieren (loosen) leven beginnen te vertonen (quicken) moed geven (hearten) moed scheppen (hearten) somber stemmen (darken) moed vatten (hearten) somber stemmen (sadden) tekenen van leven geven (quicken) strak trekken (tighten) uit zijn humeur geraken (darken) tot rust brengen (quieten) vast gaan zitten (fasten) uit zijn humeur brengen (darken)

ärgern (madden) dämpfen (dampen) eilen (hasten) mästen (fatten) spannen (tauten)

Table 3. Comparison of Dutch and German strategies

Several parallels between Dutch and German appear concerning the translation strategies. First, in both Dutch and German, the same translation mechanisms can be

found: the English ergativec verbs can be translated by means of a prefixed verb,

deadjectival verb, ergativec verb, reflexive verb or by means of an attributive construction. I distinguished a remaining group in both languages as well. Second, in both languages, verbs with prefixes are the most frequently available translations. Moreover, in both Dutch and German, the prefix ver- is the most frequent one. However, Dutch and German differ

with respect to the distribution of the ver-verbs in ERG1. In German, ver-verbs only appear

72 in the intransitive construction when they are reflexive, whereas Dutch allows intransitive non-reflexive ver-verbs as well. Third, Dutch as well as German use the attributive construction, which combines the verbs worden/werden in the intransitive construction and machen/maken in the transitive construction as a second frequent strategy. A last parallel between Dutch and German concerns the deadjectival verbs without a prefix. In both languages, they present only a minor translation strategy: Dutch only translates 4% of the

English ergativec verbs with such a deadjectival verb, German only 7%. However, whereas the Dutch deadjectival verbs appear in both transitive and intransitive clauses, the German verbs occur exclusively in transitive ones. Although the Dutch and German translation mechanisms are very similar, they differ in three respect. First, ergativec verbs are more frequent in Dutch (12%) than in German (2%). Second, reflexive verbs are more frequent in German (16%) than in Dutch (4%).

Last, in Dutch the periphrastic causative verb appears in ERG2, e.g. laten verslappen (loosen) and laten vieren (loosen). This construction does not appear in the German translations, although it is well-attested in literature.

5 Diachronic excursion

5.1 General

The translation equivalents in German and Dutch are rather similar, but differ substantially from English. The set of English ergativec verbs only correspond to 12% of Dutch ergativec verbs and only to 2% of German ergativec verbs. The differences in these three Germanic languages can be linked to other structural differences between English on the one hand and German and Dutch on the other hand. In Toyota (2008), it is shown that Modern English deviates from German and Dutch in alignment, but that Old English resembled modern German and Dutch more than it does nowadays. In order to confirm this hypothesis, Toyota (2008) compares English and German from Indo-European perspectives and focuses on changes in alignment in both languages. Before focusing on the alignment types in the history of the Indo-European languages, it is important to note that this terminology can only be applied to the so-called syntactic languages, not to semantic languages. Dixon (1994: 23) states that “labels such as nominative, accusative, absolutive and ergative are only properly applicable to languages of the first type [i.e. syntactic languages]” (Dixon 1994: 23) Syntactic languages are defined by Dixon (1994: 23) as languages in which “each verb has a prototypical meaning, and grammatical marking is applied to the verb’s arguments on the basis of their function in the prototypical instance”. Semantic languages on the other hand do not mark the participants on the basis of the prototypical meaning of the verb, but the participants are marked according to the particular use of a verb in a sentence (Dixon 1994; 24). Although English belongs to the first type, it also shows some characteristics of the semantic type. Dixon illustrates this by means of the verb ‘to kick’ (Dixon: 1994: 24). The prototypical meaning of the verb incorporates the meaning of the direct object is being affected, shown in (117). However Dixon states that English can insert prepositions to show that the direct object is not affected by the action, which is an example of direct marking (118).

(117) John kicked the ball. (118) John kicked at the ball (and missed it). (Dixon 1994: 24)

All Indo-European languages share the same alignment type nowadays, but some Indo-European languages in older language stages differed in terms of alignment type

(Toyota 2008: 281). According to Toyota (2008: 281), it is important to consider historical changes within the Indo-European languages, because he believes that “the change from an earlier type [of alignment] to the modern one helps us to explain the current grammatical structure in English and German” (Toyota 2008: 281). He provides a clear definition of alignment:

The term alignment means the way a language treats a subject and an object grammatically in terms of the distribution of morphological markers or of syntactic, semantic or morphological characteristics. Furthermore, these different systems can be roughly classified into a couple of units. (Toyota 2008: 281)

In order to clarify the alignment changes in English and German, Toyota (2008: 281- 283) first describes the different widespread types of alignment. He distinguishes two main types and one minor type of alignment: “the nominative-accusative alignment, “the absolutive-ergative alignment” and the “active-stative alignment”.38 These alignment types differ in the treating of the participants. In the nominative-accusative languages, the subject in the intransitive and the subject in the transitive construction are identical, whereas the subject and the direct object are identical in the absolutive-ergative languages (Toyota 2008: 281). Dixon (1979: 3-5) describes these alignment types and refers to them as being part of morphological ergative, next to syntactic ergativity and discourse ergativity. A language is ergative on the morphological level ergativity if the function of an NP is clear from “(i) case inflections; (ii) particles, i.e. prepositions or postpositions; (iii) pronominal cross-referencing on the main verb, or on an auxiliary verb, or (iv) word order” (Dixon 1979: 3). Depending on the particular relation between the object and subject, a language can be (i) absolutive/ergative, in which case the absolutive is usually the unmarked case, or (ii) nominative-accusative, in which the nominative is generally the unmarked case (Dixon 1979: 72). The third type of alignment, the active-stative alignment fills in an intermediary position. This alignment type is “identified based in the split of intransitive subjects into two groups: the active-cum-pseudo-transitive subject and the stative/inactive-cum- transitive object” (Toyota 2008: 282). The Indo-European languages all belong to the nominative-accusative languages. Toyota (2008: 282) adds that these Indo-European languages in earlier language stages belonged to the active alignment. It is important to note, however, that the system a language adopts is not clear-cut: no known language is purely ergative at any level (Dixon

38 Cf. §2.2: ‘Ergativity representing different phenomena’, p. 12

1979: 84).39 Toyota (2008: 283) remarks this as well and adds that some languages show some characteristics of the ergative pattern. This partial ergative alignment is known as split-ergativity. This alignment pattern often arises when “historical changes leave some gap in the verbal paradigm in a language in question” (Toyota 2008: 283). The type of alignment change that occurred in the Indo-European languages is one from an aspect language to a transitive one. In Proto-Indo-European, the aspectual distinction between perfect and imperfect was the most important one. However, the causer-causee relationship could still be expressed by the speaker. In the evolution of the Indo-European languages, the relationship causer-causee gained importance, and it could be realised grammatically, which resulted in the active-middle dichotomy. The active then expressed the causer- causee relationships and the middle expressed the lack of this relationship (Toyota 2008: 283).

5.2 Hypothesis

As mentioned above, Toyota (2008: 287) argues that “[d]ue to the change from active to accusative alignment, IE [Indo-European] languages became sensitive to the causer-casuee relationship. Toyota (2008: 285) argues that the differences between English and German are due to the fact that German is more archaic than English and that “features found in German are characteristics of older IE [Indo-European] languages.” These distinguishing features between Modern English and Modern German are shown in Table 4. English German Nominal gender - ѵ Agreement (N & ADJ) - ѵ Case - ѵ Middle Voice - ѵ Passive voice ѵ -/ ѵ Word order SVO (rigid) V-2 (freer) Subject prominence ѵ - Topic prominence - ѵ Table 4. A selection of features in Modern English and Modern German (Toyota 2008: 285)

39 See §2.2: ‘Ergativity representing different phenomena’, p.12 76

Furthermore, Toyota (2008: 285) argues that the structural differences between German and English were not present in older language stages. His findings are summarized in Table 5, which show that Old High German and Old-English share the same characteristics.

Old English Old High German Nominal gender ѵ ѵ Agreement (N&ADJ) ѵ ѵ Case ѵ ѵ Middle voice - ѵ Passive voice - - Word order SOV (freer) SOV (freer) Subject prominence - - Topic prominence ѵ ѵ Table 5. A selection of features in Old English and Old High German (Toyota 2008: 285)

Toyota (2008: 285) therefore concludes that the changes in the history of the German language are much more subtle than the changes from Old English to Modern English. And he believes that Old English is closer to Modern High German than to Modern English (Toyota 2008: 285). Halliday (1985: 146, as cited in Lemmens 1998: 91) stresses the change in valence pattern in the history of the English language as well and claims that: “the coming of [the ergative] pattern to predominance in the system of modern English is one of a number of related developments that have been taking place in the language over the past five hundred years or more”. The evolution from an intransitive verb to an ergativec one, implies that the process, denoted by the verb, changes from being fully autonomous to a semi-autonomous process that is instigatable (Lemmens 1998: 86). Lemmens (1998: 85-94), following Davidse’s (1992; 1998) functional approach, investigated the history of the English verbs starve and hunger as a case study to illustrate the ergativization of intransitives in the history of English. Lemmens (1998: 86) argues that the Modern English verbs starve and hunger differ nowadays both semantically and syntactically drastically from the original verbs. In Old English, the verb to starve was (near-)synonymous with the present-day verb to die. The original meaning of to starve is

77 found in the cognate forms in other Germanic languages as well, e.g. “Old Frisian sterva, Old Saxon sterban, Middle Dutch sterven, and Old High German sterban” (Lemmens 1998: 87). Probably, the semantic and the syntactic interchangeability of the verbs to starve and to die resulted in a process of semantic specialization of the verb to starve which could only be used to denote one specific meaning, i.e. “a lingering death caused by hunger [...], cold [...], grief, or slow disease” (Lemmens 1998: 87). This lexical specialization went together with a change in distribution: from the 16th century onwards, to starve could be used in ERG2 (Lemmens: 1998: 88).This is, according to Lemmens a clear instance of ergativization, since the process evaluated to one which is instigatable. The verb afterwards lost the ability to occur as an intransitive verb and thus became ergativec. Whereas Toyota (2008) and Halliday (1985 as cited in Lemmens 1998) stress the similarities between Old English and the other Germanic languages, illustrated by means of German, Van Gelderen (2011: 106) stresses that Old English already deviated in its basic valence pattern in comparison with the other Germanic languages. She compared the pattern of Old English with that of Modern English and discovered that the valence pattern remained stable in the history of the English language, but that English deviates substantially from the other Germanic languages in having the greatest number of labile verbs (Van Gelderen 2011: 106). García García (2012) supports Van Gelderen’s view that Old English already deviates from the other Germanic languages in having more labile verbs. García García (2012: 131) states that “in spite of their vitality in early Germanic, few of the causative jan- oppositions remain in the modern languages”.40 Even during the Old English period, the relation between the Germanic causative verb pairs already started to become less transparent due to sound changes (García García 2012: 131;135). Moreover, “no systematic relationship holds between derived causatives and their bases in Old English” (García García 2012: 135). García García (2012: 137) considers the loss of the causative opposition as the most remarkable syntactic development in Old English. The causative opposition disappeared as one or both of the members of the causative pair increased in valence (García García 2012: 137). García García (2012) adds that this development only affected the verb pairs, which have an intransitive verbs as base. 41 Either a causing participant (Agent) was added to the valence pattern of the intransitive base, so that the

40 Cf. §2.5.3.1: ‘Causativizing affixes’, p. 29 41 Cf. Haspelmath (1991): “causative verbs pair” in §2.5.2: ‘Contrastive approaches so far’, p.23 78 verb became transitive, or the derived verb on –jan can lost the causing participant and as a result became intransitive. Both processes resulted in a labile verb, that could be used in both ERG1 and in ERG2 (García García 2012: 137). García García (2012: 137) remarks that labile verbs should be distinguished from intransitive verbs that turned into transitive ones through a transitivization process. The main difference between labile verbs and regular transitive verbs concerns the participant that is added. The labile verb adds a causing participant to its valence pattern, whereas the transitive verb takes on an accusative object (García García 2012: 137). This syntactic melting process started in common Germanic, as it can be demonstrated that some verb pairs are not distinct in the Modern Germanic languages, e.g. the two distinct verbs in the pair. “GER *brenna- (intr.) vs. *branija- (tr.) are translated by one single verb in English (burn), Dutch (branden) and German (brennen). However, this process in Old English is called ‘collapsing causative oppositions’, because of the high frequency of labile verbs in García García’s study (García García 2012: 137). His study shows that in Old English “a total of 13 out of 57 OE causative pairs show syntactic melting” (García García 2012: 137). García García (2012: 138) concludes that “The syntactic melting of causative oppositions seems to be more frequent in Old English than in other Germanic languages”. 42 However, he adds that this statement should be considered with caution, as García García (2012: 138) believes that more thorough research is needed to confirm this claim. Interesting for this research is that García García (2012: 138) compares Old English and Old High German with regard to labile verbs. García García (2012: 138) states:

“The causative alternation is maintained in Old High German and Old Saxon, as opposed to Old English. Labile verbs are extraordinarily frequent in present-day English […], as opposed to for instance Modern High German.”

42 According to García García (2012: 139), The high frequency of labile verbs in English is related to the fact that “in English both obligatory subjects and a fixed word order function as disambiguating strategies.” As a result, no confusion between ERG1 (The door opened) and ERG2 (He opened the door) is possible, as opposed to pro-drop languages. However, he (2012: 139) remarks that “incidentally, German has fewer labile verbs than English, although it is also a non-pro-drop language; However, it has a more flexible word order, which might lead to ambiguous interpretation of the arguments in instances where there is no or ambivalent case marking” (García García 2012: 139) García García (2012: 139) furthermore notes that “the increase of labile verbs in English has also been pointed out by Fischer (1994: 98-103, and elsewhere) in connection with the rise of accusative and infinitive constructions in English, and the change in word order from basic subject-object-verb (SOV) to subject-verb-object (SVO), which could have caused transitive infinitives to be interpreted as intransitive ones.”

García García (2012: 138) illustrates this split between Modern English and Modern High German by means of the following verbs pairs (123), that are morphologically marked in German, but labile in English:

(123) English German sink versinken/versenken split sich spalten/spalten wake up erwachen/erwecken (García García 2012: 138, 16)

Aronson (1977: 202), like García García (2012: 138), remarks that the transitive/intransitive opposition is much clearer in German than it is in English. He shares the opinion of Van Gelderen (2011) and García García (2012), that Modern English differs from Old English in its typology.

6 Conclusion

In this study, I examined the different strategies that occur in Dutch and German to represent a set of 41 English ergativec verbs. In order to obtain the translations, I consulted the Van Dale dictionary for Dutch and the Collins Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary for German. I then illustrated the quantitative results with instances from the Opus-corpus, which provides parallel translated texts for both English-Dutch and English-German. Several parallels and differences between English, Dutch and German can be found.

First, both Dutch and German equivalents of the English ergativec verbs could be divided on the basis of their internal syntactic structure into five main groups (prefixed verbs, deadjectival verbs, ergativec verbs, reflexive verbs and an attributive construction) and a remaining group. Second, in both Dutch and German, I discovered that prefixed verbs represent a major translation strategy. The most frequent and most significant prefix in both languages is ver–. This prefix seems to be linked to ergativityc in Dutch: in over 80% of the Dutch ergativec verbs found in the results, the verb contained this prefix. However, the ver-verbs in German behave differently: Dutch ver-verbs appear in both constructions of the ergativec alternation, German ver-verbs appear in ERG2, whereas they only occur in ERG1 with the reflexive pronoun ‘zich’. The prefix ver- thus distinguishes between the alternating constructions in Dutch, but German uses the reflexive pronoun to oppose ERG1 against ERG2

Third, the representation of the English ergativec verb as an attributive construction in Dutch and German, which combines the verbs worden/werden in ERG1 and machen/maken in ERG2 is, next to the prefixed verbs, a frequent translation strategy. Due to the frequency of this construction, a difference in focus between both languages appears.

In English, the process itself is highlighted by means of the ergativec verb, whereas the periphrastic construction in Dutch and German shifts the focus towards the result of the process. Last, A final minor strategy in Dutch is the periphrastic construction of doen/laten combined with a verb. This strategy is not found in my results in German.

As I examined only a restricted set of ergativec verbs in English, no generalizations for ergativityc in Dutch or German can be made so far. To learn more about the equivalents of English ergativec verbs in Dutch and German, I believe that it would be useful to start from larger sets of English verbs. A more detailed investigation of the reflexive construction and on the the different Dutch prefixes found in the current data set, and more specifically on their contribution in the senses of one or both of ERG1 and ERG2 is needed.

Appendix 1: Dutch primary data

English Dutch: intransitive Dutch: transitive awaken ontwaken wekken wakker worden wakker maken zich bewust worden bewust maken gaan beseffen doen beseffen blacken zwart/donker worden zwartmaken zwarten zwarten brighten opklaren doen opklaren ophelderen opglanzen broaden verbreden verbreden zich verbreden breder worden breder maken cheapen goedkoop/goedkoper worden goedkoop/goedkoper maken in prijs dalen in prijs/waarde doen dalen coarsen ruw worden ruw maken dampen vochtig worden vochtig maken bevochtigen darken donker(der) worden donker(der) maken verduisteren verduisteren verdonkeren verdonkeren vertroebelen (doen) vertroebelen onduidelijk worden onduidelijk maken vervagen doen vervagen betrekken bewolkt worden versomberen somber stemmen treurig worden triest stemmen uit zijn humeur geraken uit zijn humeur brengen blind worden blind maken verblinden deepen dieper worden dieper maken zich verdiepen verdiepen uitdiepen fasten dichtgaan bevestigen sluiten vastzetten vast gaan zitten vastbinden zich vasthechten vastmaken fatten dik worden dik(ker) maken vet worden (vet)mesten flatten plat(ter) worden, afplatten pletten meer vlak/laag/effen worden afvlakken effenen flauw worden flauw(er) maken

(meer) dof/mat/smaakloos/saai/eentonig (meer) dof/mat/smaakloos/saai worden maken freshen (vaak met up) frisser worden (vaak met up) opfrissen (vaak met up) verfrissen (voornamelijk met up) zich verfrissen zich verfrissen wederkerend werkwoord (vaak met up) er frisser gaan (voornamelijk met up) zich uitzien opfrissen (vaak met up) opfleuren (doen) opfleuren minder zilt worden ontzilten minder zout worden ontzouten harden verharden verharden harden hard/ongevoellig/gevoelloos worden hard maken een vaste vorm aannemen een vaste vorm geven hasten zich haasten verhaasten snellen versnellen hearten moed vatten bemoedigen moed scheppen moed geven heighten hoger worden hoog/hoger maken verhogen ophogen toenemen doen toenemen verhevigen versterken erger maken intensifiëren intensiveren lengthen lengen verlengen langer worden langer maken lessen afnemen beperken verminderen verminderen minderen teruglopen terugbrengen dalen verlagen achteruitgaan terugbrengen lighten licht(er) worden verlichten minder drukkend worden bevrijden van een druk/last ontlasten ophelderen verhelderen verlichten lichten opklaren (gaan) glanzen/glimmen/gloeien klaren gloren dagen bliksemen (weer)lichten

84 loosen los(ser) worden losser maken losgaan losknopen ontspannen laten vieren verslappen laten verslappen madden gek/krankzinnig worden gek/krankzinnig maken woedend/razend worden woedend/razend maken moisten vochtig worden bevochtigen quicken levend worden levend maken (weer) tot leven komen doen herleven leven beginnen te vertonen bezielen tekenen van leven geven verlevendigen quieten rustig worden tot rust brengen kalmeren kalmeren bedaren tot bedaren brengen redden rood worden rood maken blozen doen blozen ruw/oneffen/ongelijkmatig roughen worden ruw maken ruwen sadden bedroefd/neerslachtig worden verdrietig maken bedroeven betrekken donker worden somber worden somber stemmen sharpen scherp(er) worden scherp(er) maken verscherpen verscherpen scherpen scherpen zich verscherpen zich scherpen shorten kort(er) worden korter maken verkorten korten afkorten ziek/misselijk/onpasselijk sicken worden ziek/misselijk maken het beu/moe worden moe maken walgen doen walgen verzwakken verzwakken soften zacht(er) worden zacht(er) maken verzachten vertederd worden teder maken vertederen vertederen stiffen verstijven verstijven stijf/stijver/strammer worden stijf/stram maken een vastere vorm aannemen een vastere vorm doen aannemen verstevigen verstevigen in kracht toenemen krachtiger maken straighten recht worden rechtmaken recht trekken recht zetten

85 strengthen sterk(er) worden sterk(er) maken aansterken versterken in kracht toenemen verstevigen tauten zich spannen spannen strak/gespannen worden aanhalen aantrekken thicken dik(ker)/dicht(er) worden dik(ker)/dichter maken aandikken aandikken verdikken verdikken verdichten verdichten stollen (vloeistof) binden (vloeistof) gebonden/geconcentreerder worden zich groeperen/concentreren/verzamel en , samenkomen samenbrengen toenemen (in dikte/aantal), doen toenemen (in dikte/aantal) onduidelijk/onverstaanbaar onduidelijk(er) worden maken ingewikkeld(er)/moeilijk(er)/ver ingewikkeld(er)/moeilijk(er)/ver ward(er) worden ward(er) maken, tighten zich spannen spannen strakker worden strak trekken aanhalen vastsnoeren taai/hard/onbuigzaam doen toughen taai/hard/onbuigzaam worden worden waken ontwaken wekken opwekken wakker worden wakker maken whiten wit/bleek worden witten opbleken bleken

Appendix 2: German primary data

English German transitive German intransitive awaken wecken erwachen blacken schwärzen schwarz machen schwarz anmahlen brighten aufheitern aufheitern sich aufheitern broaden verbreitern sich verbreitern breiter werden dampen dämpfen darken verdunkeln sich verdunkeln dunkel machen dunkel werden verfinstern sich verfinstern deepen vertiefen sich vertiefen tiefer werden fasten befestigen (an) festmachen fatten fett werden mästen sich mästen flatten flach drücken freshen erfrischen auffrischen frisch werden harden härten hart werden abhärten sich verhärten hasten eilen sich beeilen hearten heighten lengthen verlängern länger machen länger werden lessen verringern sich verringern lighten (1) aufhellen sich aufhellen heller machen hell werden lighten (2) leichter machen erleichtern loosen lockern sich lockern auflockern sich auflockern locker lassen madden ärgern verärgern moisten anfeuchten quicken beschleunigen sich beschleunigen

87 quieten beruhigen zur Ruhe bringen redden röten sich sröten roughen aufrauen rau machen rau werden sadden traurig stimmen sharpen schärfen shorten kürzen kürzer werden

verkürzen sicken krank machen krank werden soften weich/ weicher machen weicher/ weich werden aufweichen sanfter machen sanft werden stiffen steif machen steifer werden straighten gerade ziehen gerade werden gerade machen strengthen stärken stärker werden verstärken sich verstärken tauten spannen sich spannen anspannen thicken dicker machen dicker/dick werden eindicken dichter werden sich verdichten tighten anziehen sich zusammenziehen toughen abhärten härten sich verhärten waken wecken aufwachen aufwecken erwachen whiten weiβ machen weiβ werden weissen

Appendix 3: Dutch results

Dutch: prefix ver- English intransitive transitive verbreden verbreden broaden zich verbreden broaden verduisteren verduisteren darken verdonkeren verdonkeren darken vertroebelen vertroebelen darken doen vertroebelen darken vervagen doen vervagen darken versomberen darken verblinden darken zich verdiepen verdiepen deepen zich verfrissen zich verfrissen freshen verharden verharden harden verhaasten hasten versnellen hasten verhogen heighten versterken heighten verhevigen heighten verlengen lengthen verminderen verminderen lessen verlagen lessen verlichten lighten verhelderen lighten verslappen laten verslappen loosen verlevendigen quicken verscherpen verscherpen sharpen zich verscherpen verzwakken verzwakken sicken verzachten soften vertederen vertederen soften verstijven verstijven stiffen versterken strengthen verstevigen strengthen verstevigen verstevigen stiffen verdikken verdikken thicken verdichten verdichten thicken Dutch: prefix ont-/be- ontwaken awaken ontspannen loosen ontlasten lighten ontwaken waken ontzilten freshen ontzouten freshen betrekken darken

bevochtigen dampen bevestigen fasten bemoedigen hearten bezielen quicken bevochtigen moisten bedroeven sadden betrekken sadden bedaren quieten beperken lessen Dutch: other prefixes opklaren doen opklaren brighten ophelderen brighten opglanzen brighten uitdiepen deepen afplatten flatten afvlakken flatten opfrissen freshen zich opfrissen freshen opfleuren opfleuren freshen doen opfleuren freshen ophogen heighten afnemen lessen ophelderen lighten opklaren lighten afkorten shorten aansterken strengthen aandikken aandikken thicken opwekken waken opbleken whiten

Dutch: attributive English intransitive transitive wakker worden wakker maken awaken zich bewust worden bewust maken awaken zwart/donker worden zwartmaken blacken breder worden breder maken broaden goedkoop/goedkoper worden goedkoop/goedkoper maken cheapen ruw worden ruw maken coarsen vochtig worden vochtig maken dampen donker/donkerder worden donker/donkerder maken darken onduidelijk worden onduidelijk maken darken bewolkt worden darken treurig worden triest stemmen darken blind worden blind maken darken dieper worden dieper maken deepen dik worden dik/dikker maken fatten vet worden fatten

90 plat/platter worden flatten meer vlak/laag/effen worden flatten flauw worden flauw/flauwer maken flatten (meer) dof/mat/smaakloos/eentonig (meer) dof/mat/smaakloos/saai worden maken flatten minder zilt worden freshen minder zout worden freshen hard/ongevoellig/gevoelloos worden hard maken harden hoger worden hoog/hoger maken heighten erger maken heighten langer worden langer maken lengthen licht/lichter worden lighten minder drukkend worden lighten los/losser worden losser maken loosen gek/krankzinnig worden gek krankzinnig maken madden woedend/razend worden woedend/razend maken madden vochtig worden moisten levend worden levend maken quicken rustig worden quieten rood worden rood maken redden ruw/oneffen/ongelijkmatig worden ruw maken roughen bedroefd/neerslachtig worden verdietig maken sadden somber worden somber stemmen sadden scherp/scherper worden scherp/scherper maken sharpen kort/korter worden korter maken shorten ziek/misselijk/onpasselijk worden ziek/misselijk maken sicken het beu/moe worden moe maken sicken zacht/zachter worden zacht/zachter maken soften vertederd worden teder maken soften stijf/stijver/strammer worden stijf/stram maken stiffen recht worden rechtmaken straighten sterk/sterker worden sterk/sterker maken strengthen strak/gespannen worden tauten dik/dikker/dicht/dichter worden dik/dikker/dichter maken thicken gebonden/geconcentreerder worden thicken onduidelijk/onverstaanbaar onduidelijk/onduidelijker worden maken thicken ingewikkel(der)/moeilijk(er)/ver ingewikkel(der)/moeilijk(er)/ver ward(er) worden ward(er) maken thicken strakker worden strak trekken tighten taai/hard/onbuigzaam doen taai/hard/onbuigzaam worden worden toughen wakker worden wakker maken waken wit/bleek worden whiten

Dutch: ergativec English zwarten blacken verbreden broaden verduisteren darken verdonkeren darken vertroebelen darken opfleuren freshen verharden harden verminderen lessen kalmeren quieten verscherpen sharpen verzwakken sicken vertederen soften verstijven stiffen verstevigen stiffen aandikken thicken verdikken thicken verdichten thicken scherpen sharpen

Dutch: deadjectival in -en English intransitive transitive zwarten zwarten blacken pletten flatten effenen flatten harden harden snellen hasten lichten lighten klaren lighten scherpen scherpen scharpen ruwen roughen korten shorten tauten witten whiten bleken whiten

Dutch: reflexive English intransitive transitive zich bewust worden awaken zich verbreden broaden zich verdiepen deepen zich vasthechten fasten zich verfrissen zich verfrissen freshen zich opfrissen freshen

92 zich haasten hasten zich verscherpen sharpen zich scherpen sharpen zich spannen tauten zich groeperen thicken zich spannen thighten

Dutch: other English intransitive transitive gaan beseffen doen beseffen awaken opklaren doen opklaren brighten in prijs dalen in prijs/waarde doen dalen cheapen vertroebelen doen vertroebelen darken vervagen doen vervagen darken opfleuren doen opfleuren freshen toenemen doen toenemen heighten (weer) tot leven komen doen herleven quicken walgen doen walgen sicken een vastere vorm aannemen een vastere vorm doen aannemen stiffen toenemen doen toenemen thicken taai/hard/onbuigzaam doen taai/hard/onbuigzaam worden worden toughen uit zijn humeur geraken uit zijn humeur brengen darken een vaste vorm aannemen een vaste vorm geven harden moed vatten hearten moed scheppen moed geven hearten minder drukkend worden bevrijden van een druk/last lighten leven beginnen te vertonen quicken tekenen van leven geven quicken tot rust brengen quieten bedaren tot bedaren brengen in kracht toenemen strengthen stiffen strakker worden strak trekken tighten versomberen somber stemmen darken treurig worden triest stemmen darken vast gaan zitten fasten er frisser gaan uitzien freshen gaan glanzen/glimmen/gloeien lighten laten vieren loosen verslappen laten verslappen loosen somber worden somber stemmen sadden

Appendix 4: German results

German: prefix ver- English transitive intransitive verbreitern sich verbreitern broaden verdunkeln sich verdunkeln darken verfinstern sich verfinstern darken vertiefen sich vertiefen deepen sich verhärten harden verlängern lengthen verringern sich verringern lessen verärgern madden verkürzen shorten verstärken sich verstärken strengthen sich verdichten thicken sich verhärten toughen German: prefix er- erwachen awaken erfrischen freshen erleichtern lighten (2) erwachen waken German: prefix an- schwarz anmahlen blacken anfeuchten moisten anspannen tauten anziehen tighten anspannen tauten anziehen tighten German: prefix auf- aufheitern aufheitern brighten sich aufheitern brighten auffrischen freshen aufhellen sich aufhellen lighten (1) auflockern sich auflockern loosen aufrauen roughen aufweichen soften aufwecken aufwachen waken German: prefix be- befestigen (an) fasten sich beeilen hasten beschleunigen sich beschleunigen quicken beruhigen quieten German: prefix ein- eindicken thicken

German : attributive English

94 transitive intransitive schwarz machen blacken breiter werden broaden dunkel machen dunkel werden darken fett werden fatten frisch werden freshen hart werden harden länger machen länger werden lengthen heller machen hell werden lighten( 1) leichter machen lighten (2) rau machen rau werden roughen kürzer werden shorten krank machen krank werden sicken weich/ weicher machen weich/ weicher werden soften sanfter machen sanft werden soften steif machen steif werden stiffen gerade machen gerade werden straighten dicker machen dick/ dicker werden thicken dichter werden thicken weiβ machen weiβ werden whiten festmachen fasten schwarz anmahlen blacken flach drücken flatten locker lassen loosen traurig stimmen sadden gerade ziehen straighten

German: ergativec English aufheitern brighten

German: deadjectival in -en English transitive intransitive wecken awaken schwärzen blacken härten harden lockern loosen röten redden schärfen sharpen kürzen shorten stärken strengthen weissen whiten

German: reflexive English transitive intransitive sich aufheitern brighten

sich verbreitern broaden sich verdunkeln darken sich verfinstern darken sich vertiefen deepen sich mästen fatten sich verhärten harden sich beeilen hasten sich verringern lessen sich aufhellen lighten (1) sich lockern loosen sich auflockern loosen sich beschleunigen quicken sich röten redden sich verstärken strengthen sich spannen tauten sich verdichten thicken sich zusammenziehen tighten sich verhärten toughen

German: other English transitive intransitive spannen tauten wecken waken dämpfen dampen mästen fatten ärgern madden eilen hasten zur Ruh bringen quieten

References

Abraham, Werner. 1986. Unaccusatives in German. Groninger Arbeiten zur germanistischen Linguistik 28. 1-72.

Abraham, Werner. 2003. Ergative diagnostics. Temptatio redux. Linguistik online 13, http://www.linguistik-online.de/13_01/abraham.html. (22 May 2012.)

Alexiadou, Artemis, Elena Anagnostopoulou & Martin Everaert (eds.). 2004. The unaccusativity puzzle: explorations of the syntax-lexicon interface. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Aronson, Howard. 1977. English as an active language. Lingua 41(3–4): 201-216.

Baron, Naomi. 1974. The structure of English causatives. Lingua 33(4): 299–342.

Beld, Ingmar van de. 2010. Reflexivity and Dutch Ver-verbs. Utrecht: Universiteit Utrecht Phd thesis.

Bentley, Delia & Thórhallur Eythórsson. 2003. Auxiliary selection and the semantics of unaccusativity. Lingua 114. 447-471.

Collins English Dictionary. http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary

Comrie, Bernard. 2006. Transitivity pairs, markedness and diachronic stability. Linguistics 44(2): 303-318.

Cornips, Leonie & Aafke Hulk. 1996. Ergative reflexives in Heerlen Dutch and French. Studia Linguistica 50(1) 1-21.

Daunorienė, Justina. 2007. Bedeutungswandel bei den Reflexiven Verben des Deutschen. Kalbotyra 57(3), S. 62-70.

Davidse, Kristin & Sara Geyskens. 1997. Have you Walked the Dog yet? The Ergative Causativization of Intransitives. Preprint no. 161. Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit.

Davidse, Kristin. 1992. Transitivity/ergativity: The Janus-headed grammar of actions and events. In Davies, Martin & Louise Ravelli (eds.) Advances in systemic Linguistics: Recent theory and practice. London: Pinter. 105-135.

Davidse, Kristin. 1998. On transitivity and ergativity in English, or on the need for dialogue between schools. In Auwera, Johan van der; F. Durieux & L. Lejeune (eds.) English as a Human language. To Honour Louis Goossens. (Lincom Studies in Germanic Linguistics, 4.) München: Lincom Europa. 95-108.

De Groote, Evi. 2012. A contrastive study of a set of ergative verbs in English and Dutch. Ghent: Ghent University BA paper.

Dixon, R.M.W. 1979. Ergativity. Language 55 (1). 59-138.

Dixon, R. M. W. 1994. Ergativity. Cambridge: University Press.

Fabb, Nigel. 1988. English suffixation is only constrained by selectional restrictions. Natural language & Linguistic theory. 6(4): 527-539.

Fontenelle, Thierry. 1996. Ergativity, collocations and lexical functions. In Gellerstram, Martin, Jerker Järborg, Sven-Göran Malmgren, Kerstin Norén, Lena Rogström and Catarina Röder Papmehl (eds.) Euralex ‘96 Proceedings. Goteborg: Göteborg University. 209-222.

Francis, Gill, Susan Hunston & Elizabeth Manning (eds.). 1996. Collins COBUILD Grammar Patterns. Vol. 1: Verbs. London: HarperCollins.

García García, Luisa. 2012. Morphological Causatives in Old English: the Quest for a Vanishing Formation. Transactions of the Philological Society 110 (1): 122-148.

Gelderen, Elly van. 2011. Valency changes in the history of English. Journal of Historical Linguistics 1(1): 106-143.

Gunkel, Lutz. 2003. Infinitheit, Passiv und Kausativkonstruktionen im Deutschen. Stauffenburg: Tübingen.

Haspelmath, Martin & Thomas Müller-Bardey. 1991 (slightly revised in 2001) Valence change. In G. Booij, Lehmann C. & Mugdan, J (eds.) Morphology.A Handbook on Inflection and Word Formation. Berlin: de Gruyter: 1-23.

Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. More on the typology of inchoative/causative verb alternations. In Comrie B. & M. Polinsky (eds.) Causatives and transitivity. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 87 -120.

Haspelmath, Martin. 2002. Understanding Morphology. London: Oxford University Press.

Haspelmath, Martin. 2008. Frequency vs. iconicity in explaining grammatical asymmetries. Cognitive Linguistics 19.1:1-33.

Hieble, Jacob. 1957. What about the German Umlaut? The German Quarterly 30(4): 272- 274.

Horvath, Julia & Tal Siloni. 2011. Anticausatives: Against reflexivization. Lingua 121(15). 2176- 2186.

Hovav, Malka Rappaport. 2005. Review of: Alexiadou, Artemis, Elena Anagnostopoulou & Martin Everaert (eds.) (2004) The unaccusativity puzzle: explorations of the syntax lexicon interface. Journal of Linguistics 41(3). 623-629.

Kaválková, Renata. 2007. Semantische Leistung der Präfixe bei deutschen Verben. Masaryk University. Thesis.

Kjellmer, Göran. 2001. Why Weaken But Not *Strongen? On Deadjectival Verbs. English Studies 82(2): 154-171.

Klaholz, Dominique. 2005. Prefixation in English. Marburg: Philipss University Marburg.

Laffut, An. 1998. The locative alternation: A contrastive study of Dutch vs. English. Languages in Contrast 1(2). 127-160.

Legendre, Géraldine, Yoshiro Miyata & Paul Smolensky. 1991. Unifying syntactic and semantic approaches to unaccusativity: A connectionist approach. Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley, CA.

Lemmens, Maarten. 1998. Lexical Perspectives on Transitivity and Ergativity. Causative Constructions in English, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Letuchij, Alexandr. 2004. Lability of verbs and its relations to verb meaning and argument structure (based on the data of Indo-European, Arabic, Turkic and other languages).

Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport Hovav. 1994. A preliminary analysis of causative verbs in English. Lingua 92. 35-77.

Levin, Beth & Malka Rappaport Hovav. 1995. Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lieber, Rochelle & Harald Baayen. 1993. Verbal prefixes in Dutch: A study in lexical conceptual structure. In Booij, Geert & Jaap van Marle (eds.) Yearbook of morphology 1993. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 51–78.

Los, Bettelou, Corrien Blom, Geert Booij, Marion Elenbaas & Ans van Kemenade. 2012. Morphosyntactic change: A comparative study of particles and prefixes. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Montemagni, Simonetta. 1994. Non alternating argument structures: the causative/inchoative alternation in dictionaries. Proceedings of Euralex ‘94, Amsterdam, 349-359.

Möhlig, Ruth & Monika Klages. 2002. Detransitivization in the history of English from a semantic perspective. In Fanega, Teresa & María José López-Couso (eds.) English Historical Syntax and Morphology. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 231-254.

Oxford German Dictionary. http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english

Philippa, Marlies, Frans Debrabandere, Arend Quak, Tanneke Schoonheim & Nicoline van der Sijs (eds.). 2003-2009. Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Piñón, Christopher. 2001. Modelling the Causative-Inchoative Alternation. Linguistische Arbeitsberichte 76: 273–293.

100

Reinhart, Tanya & Tal Siloni. 2004. Against the unaccusative analysis of reflexives. Alexiadou, Artemis, Elena Anagnostopoulou & Martin Everaert (eds.) The unaccusativity Puzzle. Studies on the syntax-lexicon interface. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 288-331.

Shibatani, Mayayoshi. 1975. A linguistic study of causative constructions. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.

Smolka et al. 2009. When semantics means less than morphology: The processing of German prefixed verbs. Language and cognitive processes 24: 337-375.

Thoutenhoofd, Ernst. 2007. Corpus linguistics as multimedia laboratory: Material culture and experimental practise in the social sciences. [Paper presented at the “science and technology studies views of e-social science” panel, Third International Conference on e-social science, Ann Arbor (US), 7-9 October, http://www.virtualknowledgestudio.nl/staff/ernst-thoutenhoofd/documents/ paper_ann%20arbor%202007.pdf. (5 May 2012.)

Tiedemann, Jörg. 2009. News from OPUS - A Collection of Multilingual Parallel Corpora Tools and Interfaces. In Nicolov, N., K. Bontcheva, G. Angelova & R. Mitkov (eds.) Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 237-248.

Toyota, Junichi. 2008. Re-evaluating comparison between English and German: Indo- European perspectives. Kalbotyra: Germanų ir romanų studijos 59(3): 281–289.

Twaddell, W. Freeman. 1938 A Note on Old High German Umlaut. Monatshefte für deutschen Unterricht. 30(3/4): 41-43.

Van Dale Grote woordenboeken, 5th edn. 2009. Antwerpen: Van Dale uitgevers.

Verhagen, Arie & Suzanne Kemmer. 1997. Interaction and causation: causative constructions in modern standard Dutch. Journal of pragmatics 27, 61-82.

Verhagen, Arie. 1998. Changes in the use of Dutch doen and the nature of semantic knowledge. In Ostade, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van, Marijke van der Wal & Arjan van

101

Leuvensteijn. (eds.) Do in English, Dutch and German. History and present-day variation. Münster: Nodus Publikationen. 103-119.

Verwijs, Eelco & Jacob Verdam. 1885. Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek. ’s- Gravenhage: Nijhoff.

Vries, Mark de. 2000. Reflexieve constructies en ergativiteit. Een speurtocht naar de syntaxis van wederkerendheid in het Nederlands, Heerlens en Frans. In H. den Besten (ed.) Samengevoegde woorden. Valedictory volume in honour of Wim Klooster, Universiteit van Amsterdam. 253-263.

Wunderlich, Dieter. 1997. Cause and the structure of verbs. Linguistic Inquiry, 28(1): 27- 68.

Zaenen, Annie. 1993. Unaccusative verbs in Dutch and the syntax-semantics interface. In Pustejovski, J. (ed.) Semantics and the lexicon. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 129-61.

102