1 Introduction

Pazar Laz (PL) is an endangered South-Caucasian language spoken in North-Eastern Turkey. It exhibits an active alignment case system which remains constant across all tense and aspect series (cf. Harris 1985; Öztürk & Pöchtrager 2011). As an active alignment language, it presents a split between different types of intransitives, i.e., unergatives and unaccusatives as illustrated in (1). While the subjects of unergatives as in (1b) are marked with ergative case similar to the ergative subjects of transitives as given in (1a), subjects of unaccusatives in (1c) surface with nominative case which is zero in form in parallel to the objects in transitive constructions. Note that unlike the pattern available in languages like Georgian – a close relative of PL, ergative case is not restricted to perfective contexts, but is available across all aspects and tenses. In terms of agreement, both ergative and nominative subjects qualify to govern the suffixal agreement on the verb as seen in (1). Note that the choice of ergative vs. nominative case for the subject of an intransitive is to a certain extent dependent on thematic roles. While initiators including agents and causers require ergative case, undergoers such as patients and themes take nominative case (cf. Öztürk 2019a):¹

When we focus on unergative predicates in PL, we mainly see two patterns. One pattern, as given in (1b) and (2), mainly comprises verbs of sound/smell/light emission. The verbal root can be onomatopoeic. The subject can be animate or inanimate, but is always marked with ergative case:²

The second pattern typically comprises activity denoting manner verbs with ergative subjects. Different from the first pattern, these verbs always require the valency marker i-, which we will analyze as a pronominal clitic standing for an argument position in Section 3:

In this study, focusing on eventive predicates in PL, we will argue that both unergative patterns given above always involve an overtly filled object position and behave simply on a par with regular transitive verbs. As dynamic verbs requiring an initiator, unergatives in PL exhibit Neo-Burzio Dependency defined by Nash (2018), who proposes that in languages like Georgian the availability of Agent/Initiator role is dependent on the availability of a vP internal argument. v can be argument-selecting or not and small “in some languages v cannot be eventive unless it selects a theme” (Nash 2017b:8) and in the case of Georgian she suggests that “this constraint prevents a predicate that does not have a theme to have its external argument interpreted as an initiator introduced by Voice_[+D] [where D stands for the introduction of a referential DP]. In other words, the initiator of the event must “see”/c-command another argument projected in its complement” (Nash 2017b:9). Nash (2018) introduces this language-specific restriction as the Neo-Burzio Dependency:

As a result of Neo-Burzio Dependency which Nash (2018) argues to hold in Georgian, the thematic property of the external argument is strictly correlated with the thematic property of the predicate. If the predicate selects a lower argument, the external is interpreted as an Agent or a Causer, and a dynamic/eventive reading becomes possible.

We will argue that this transitivity requirement stemming from Neo-Burzio Dependency in PL is not restricted to unergatives but also extends to unaccusatives, which are also eventive. In parallel to Öztürk & Taylan (2017), we will show that there is a strict co-dependency between the undergoer and the presence of an initiator. In other words, if the structure involves an undergoer, the initiator should also be available and if there is an initiator the undergoer position should also be activated. This condition implies that all eventive verbal predicates project transitively in PL and that the language does not syntactically differentiate between unergatives and unaccusatives. As unergatives and unaccusatives have the same architecture, there are no true intransitives in the language. Thus, PL lacks the true unaccusative pattern (e.g. anticausatives) found in languages like English, where no initiator is available syntactically. We will further argue that the transitivity requirement for eventive predicates is a consequence of how events are defined in PL. In line with Ritter & Rosen (2000)’s typology, where languages are classified as Initiation languages or Delimitation languages based on whether they define an event in terms of its initial bound or its terminal bound. As a very conservative Initiation-language, PL has to syntactically express the initiator in all types of eventive predicates, which blocks the true unaccusative patterns.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 would introduce the morphosyntactic properties of unergatives highlighting the parallelism between transitives and unergatives in PL. Section 3 will focus on the pronominal clitic nature of the morpheme i- in PL, which will play a crucial role in establishing the transitivity of unergatives. Section 4 will discuss the unaccusatives formed with -(u)r and argue that they are also not true unaccusative constructions but are syntactically transitive. Section 5 will focus on agentive unergatives and verbs of emission and claim that they also have a transitive syntax on a par with unaccusatives in the language. Section 6 will address the question why all eventive predicates require a transitive syntax based on Ritter & Rosen (2000)’s typology. Finally, Section 7 will introduce our concluding remarks.

2 Morphosyntactic properties of unergatives in PL

When we take a closer look at the morphosyntactic properties of unergatives in PL, we observe that the choice of ergative case for the subject is not the only parallelism between unergatives and transitives. Unergative verbs also share the same set of agreement suffixes with transitive predicates in contrast to unaccusatives which require a different set of agreement suffixes (cf. Öztürk & Pöchtrager 2011). As illustrated in Table 1, in the present tense, we see a clear split between third person singular agreement markers depending on the verb type:³

As seen in (5a) and (5b), the third person singular suffix in the present appears as -s in transitives and unergatives, respectively. However, in the case of unaccusatives, the suffix appears as -n:⁴

Another parallelism between transitives and unergatives that we observe in (5) is the choice of thematic suffixes (TS, as extensively discussed in Taylan & Öztürk (2014); Öztürk and Taylan (2017). As seen in (5a) and (5b), transitives and unergatives share the same TS -am, while the unaccusative in (5c) selects a different TS, i.e. -u(r).⁵ There are four TSs in PL; -e(r)/-u(r)/-am/-um, which are obligatory in the imperfective both in present and past tenses, but do not surface in the perfective. Both eventive verbs and statives are compatible with TSs in PL and the choice of TS is sensitive to the lexical aspect and the argument structure of the verb used. As purely functional morphemes denoting imperfectivity, TSs in PL never occur in derived nouns such as masdars.⁶ Ramchand & Svenonius (2013) and Ramchand (2017) show that perfective and imperfective belongs to different functional zones. While the perfective belongs to a higher zone, imperfective (e.g. the progressive in English) which imposes selectional restrictions on the lexical aspect of the verb and which has a close connection with the verb and its arguments belongs in the lower verbal zone. They argue that imperfective is located in the projection called EventP, which is introduced above InitP where the initiator is located in a Ramchandian phrase structure (cf. Ramchand 2008).⁷ In parallel to Nash (2017a), Taylan & Öztürk (2014) and Öztürk &Taylan (2017) also take the TS – the imperfective marker as the head of this projection.⁸ Dominating the predicate domain including all the arguments, TSs are selected based on the argument structure and the lexical aspect of the verb, as seen in (6).

In PL, agentive unergatives as in (7a) and unergative verbs of emission as in (5b) take TS -am, in parallel to transitives as illustrated in (5a) and (7b). Note that in terms of lexical aspect, -am is compatible with atelic activities, as well as telic accomplishments.

As seen above, the TS that unergatives select are in parallel to the ones selected by transitives and are clearly differentiated from the TS -u(r) that unaccusatives select as seen in (8). Unaccusatives which always require the TS -u(r) include achievements (8a), degree achievements (8b) and verbs of directed motion (8c), which all express a change of state for the undergoer subject:

Even though in terms of case, agreement and TS choice unergatives align with transitives and are clearly differentiated from unaccusatives, there is one particular construction which all the three verb types are compatible with. This is the active impersonal construction (AIC) in PL (cf. Öztürk & Taylan 2017). As we will show below, PL does not have separate intransitive constructions such as passive, inchoative, middle and anticausative constructions. Instead AIC is the construction available to meet these readings in the language, which we will argue to be a transitive construction in the following section.⁹ As it will become clearer shortly, AIC is not the counterpart of non-active voice found in languages like Greek or Albanian (cf. Kallulli 2007). Instead it is an active impersonal construction found in languages like Breton, Irish, Polish and Icelandic (cf. Legate 2014). This construction requires the valency marker i-, which we will show to be a pronominal clitic, and in the imperfective, the TS -e(r) is used. The subject in this construction is nominative and again the –n set agreement based on the third person copula is used in parallel to unaccusatives. The AIC denotes a strictly externally caused agentive reading referring to a human agent:

As seen in (9), transitives are compatible with AICs, so are unergatives and unaccusatives as shown in (10a) and (10b), respectively. The use of unergatives and unaccusatives with AICs lead to an impersonal passive-like reading:

Table 2 summarizes the morphosyntactic properties of different verb types in PL as also extensively discussed in Taylan & Öztürk (2014) and Öztürk & Taylan (2017). We observe that each verb type is associated with different case, agreement and TS patterns. As seen very clearly in the table, unergatives pattern with transitives in terms of case, agreement and the TS choice, hence they are highly parallel. We will take this parallelism to argue for the transitive nature of unergatives in PL. On the other hand, there is another significant parallelism that we observe between agentive unergatives and the AIC, that is the obligatory use of the valency marker i-. Unergatives and AIC behave differently in terms of case, agreement and TS choice but they both require i-. We will argue that this marker in both constructions is a pronominal clitic and it will play a significant role in arguing for the transitivity of unergatives so in the following sections, we will focus on the morphosyntactic properties of this marker in PL.

3 The valency marker i-

As discussed above, the valency marker i- in PL is obligatory in agentive unergatives and also in AICs across all tense and aspect series. Another structure where we find the same marker in PL is the reflexive constructions. As seen in (11), there are two ways to form reflexivization in PL. The coindexation between the subject and the object in (11a) can be achieved as in (11b) with the use of a reflexive pronoun çendi ‘self’ which is borrowed from Turkish kendi ‘self’. Alternatively, the verb can be marked with the valency marker i-, which again indicates the coindexation between the subject and the object as in (11c). As seen in (11d), it is not possible for i- to co-occur with çendi:

Both in reflexives and in AICs, the verbs marked with i- have one of the overt arguments missing. In reflexives, i- targets the internal argument, whereas in AICs the external argument appears to be reduced. The question is whether i- truly reduces the valency of the predicate yielding a true intransitive or whether it fulfills the argument function itself as some kind of a pronominal clitic keeping the valency of the predicate intact. We will argue for the latter.

Let us first check whether there is any evidence for the clitic status of this marker. As extensively discussed in the literature (Holinsky 1991; Kutscher et al. 1995; Lacroix 2009; Öztürk & Pöchtrager 2011; among others), the verbal complex in Laz can host both preverbal and postverbal markers. It has been observed that the postverbal markers exhibit an agglutinative nature and behave as suffixes, whereas the preverbal material which typically cover sets of person markers, valency markers, negation and modal adverbs on the other hand, compete for limited morphological slots exhibiting a clitic-like behavior. For example, based on a person-case constraint, prefixal agreement markers compete with each other for the same slot as illustrated in (12). While in (12a) the first person subject marker wins over the third person object, in (12b) the second person object wins over the first person subject. Note that in each case only one of the arguments can be realized preverbally on the verbal complex. Having both the subject and the object markers simultaneously leads to ungrammaticality as in (12c):

We observe a similar pattern of competition among the valency markers which also include the marker i-. The reflexive valency marker i- in (13a) can also be replaced by a causative valency marker o- when an external causeP is introduced to the structure. Similarly in PL, the i- in AICs is replaced with the applicative marker a- in modal applicative constructions as in (14b) (cf. Öztürk 2012; Demirok (2018)):

In the literature, it has been shown that clitics cannot occur in nominalizations or in certain types of participles (cf. Wood 2015 for Icelandic; Kayne 1975; Pesetsky 1995 for Romance). Similary in PL, i- disappears under nominalization as in (15a) and in the formation of stative progressive participles as in (15b):

Given these patterns we take i- to be a pronominal clitic which stands for an argument in the spirit of Wood (2015), which then cliticizes onto the verbal complex. In the case of reflexives, we take it to occupy the object position standing for the undergoer which is bound by the subject as shown in (16). If it is indeed a pronominal clitic which fulfills the object function, this would also explain why i- cannot co-occur with the full reflexive pronoun çendi as illustrated in (11d):

In the case of AICs, given that the overt DP stands for the object, i- should be replacing the ergative marked agent. The question is whether we have any evidence for the agentive argument status of i- in AICs which obligatorily denote external causation brought about by an agentive human subject. When we apply the well-known tests for agentivity to AICs, we see that the construction is compatible with an agentive interpretation despite the lack of an overt ergative marked subject. As seen in (17), AICs can be modified by purpose clauses, instruments and initiator-oriented adverbs (cf. Öztürk & Taylan 2017):

The only agentivity test which AICs fail to pass is the use of an agentive by-phrase. Recall that PL does not have separate passive or anticausative constructions and simply makes use of AICs to accommodate these readings. The language simply lacks by-phrases or by itself phrases which are used to identify passives and anticausatives, respectively (cf. Alexiadou, Anagnostopoulou, Schäfer 2006).¹⁰ We argue that this follows from the presence of the valency marker i- in AICs. As a pronominal clitic i- saturates the external argument of the predicate, disallowing the introduction of another initiator into the structure through by-phrases. Similar to the i- standing for the undergoer in reflexives, the i- in structures like (9) semantically closes the initiator (cf. Chierchia 1995), hence stands for the external argument.

An anonymous reviewer suggests that AIC might be similar to the Icelandic grammatical object passives which Legate (2014) discusses. Icelandic grammatical object passives are compatible with by-phrases, however, this is not the case in PL. AIC are more similar to the impersonals in Polish, Irish and Breton impersonals which Legate (2014) also discusses. These impersonal constructions similar to the AIC in PL are incompatible with by-phrases strictly requiring a human interpretation. Legate (2014) proposes that these impersonals hosts a D element in Spec, VoiceP referring to humans saturating the external argument of the verb. Given this referential element, for example, Irish impersonals can antecede a reciprocal as seen in (18b), fully in parallel to clauses with overt subjects as in (18a):

Similar to the Irish impersonals, we see that the pronominal clitic i- can antecede reflexives in PL. Hence they act as syntactically active referential subjects. As seen in (19a), the reflexive anaphor çendi in the object position needs to be bound by the ergative subject to be licensed. Similarly, in (19b) in AICs, çendi in the object position is again licensed despite the lack of an ergative subject. We argue that it is the pronominal clitic i- in Spec, InitP which binds the anaphor çendi in Spec, ProcP:

In parallel to Öztürk & Taylan (2017), the representation we assume for AICs is given in (20), where the pronominal clitic i- occupies the external argument position. Hence it starts out in an argument position but then cliticizes on the inflected verb.¹² As the clitic i- stands for an initiator in Spec, InitP, this implies that AICs always involve an initiator in the argument position and cannot consitute anticausatives or passives, which lack an initiator.¹³

Another interesting piece of evidence for the presence of an agentive layer in AICs can be seen in the translation of such sentences into Turkish by Turkish-Laz bilinguals, which was also discussed by Öztürk & Taylan (2017). Even though Turkish morphologically differentiates between passives and anticausatives, Laz informants translated the examples with AICs into Turkish with passive morphology which allows for an agentive reading and systematically rejected the anticausative version. For example, the corresponding Turkish form of the PL sentence in (21) can only be (22b), but not (22a) according to our bilingual informants. Yet Laz informants could never introduce a by-phrase to the construction in (21), even if they match this reading with the passive in Turkish, which allows for a by-phrase as in (22b). Given these patterns we argue that AICs involve an InitP whose Spec hosts the pronominal clitic i- which blocks the introduction of a by-phrase:

Another case where we have i- surfacing is the agentive unergatives as discussed in the introduction. Such verbs always require the valency marker i- on the verbal complex in addition to an overtly ergative marked agent:

Given the above discussion regarding the argumental nature of the pronominal clitic i-, the question is whether i- in (23) also fullfills a similar function, that is, whether occupying the undergoer position, it is coindexed with the ergative subject similar to the case of reflexives as depicted in (24). In other words, do unergatives with i- have a transitive syntax in PL?:

Before answering this question affirmatively we will first take a look at another intransitive pattern available in PL, namely, the unaccusatives formed with the TS -u(r) denoting a change of state from the perspective of transitivity, which will pave the way for us to argue that unergatives are also transitives in PL.

4 Unaccusatives with -u(r)

Recall that unaccusatives compatible with the TS -u(r) in the imperfective typically denote an eventuality where the undergoer has gone through some change of state, as shown in (25). The sole argument surfaces with nominative case and exhibits -n-set suffixal agreement with the verb:

As seen in (25), verbs denoting achievements, degree achievements and verbs of directed motion fall into this group, as extensively discussed by Taylan & Öztürk (2014). The common property of all these verbs is that they express a scalar change in the sense of Rappaport Hovav (2008) for the undergoer. Rappaport Hovav defines scalar change as ‘one which involves an ordered set of changes in one particular direction of values of a single attribute and so can be characterized as movement in a particular direction along the scale’ (Rappaport Hovav 2008: 17). Within a Ramchandian phrase structure, these verbs all involve a ResP – the layer associated with change of state, as depicted in (26). The nominative argument is simultaneously both the Resultee and the Undergoer. These verbs at first sight appears to form what one can call the set of anticausatives in PL. However, we will argue for the structure in (26) which not only involves a ProcP and a ResP layer but also an InitP layer:

As we will discuss shortly, these verbs are different from what is known as anticausatives which would only consist of ProcP and ResP layers lacking InitP in languages like English. We will argue that even though there is only one overt DP argument marked with nominative case in the structure, these constructions do not qualify as anticausatives, but they are underlyingly transitive and require an InitP layer which hosts a null initiator. Such unaccusative verbs can be internally or externally caused. If they are internally caused, the nominative DP would be simultanously associated with the roles of Resultee, Undergoer and Initiator in the representation in (26). If they are externally caused, while the overt DP fulfills the roles of Undergoer and Resultee, the InitP layer would host a covert initiator.

There are two arguments supporting the representation in (26). First, just as it was the case in AICs, it is again possible to detect the implicit initiator with unaccusative verbs which take -u(r) by using initiator-oriented adverbs, purpose clauses and instrumentals, even though they do not involve the valency marker i- unlike AICs (27), as discussed in Öztürk & Taylan (2017):

The fact that the verbs with -u(r) in (27) exhibits the same pattern with AICs in terms of the use of purpose clauses and instrumentals implies that these constructions also point to the presence of an initiator in addition to the nominative undergoer, even in the absence of the valency marker i-.

As pointed out by one of the anonymous reviewers, one question which arises at this point is whether -u(r) constructions can be analyzed on a par with passive constructions which also allow for external argument semantics, but are syntactically intransitive. In other words, can these constructions still be syntactically intransitive like passives? The second argument supporting the transitive nature of these constructions comes from the data in (28). As seen in (28a), these constructions can also license the reflexive çendi and be interpreted with a transitive meaning, given the right kind of context, in the same fashion as the AIC constructions illustrated in (28b). This implies that they are not on a par with passives:¹⁴

Furthermore, it is not possible to use by-phrases to show that these constructions are passive in nature, as the language simply lacks such adjuncts. Also -u(r) is compatible with the verbs of directed motion as seen in (25c), which are typically not compatible with passives across languages. Verbs of directed motion can also be used in AIC and both in their use in AIC and in their use with -u(r) and can license the reflexive çendi, not in the adverbial sense, but implying a transitive use. As seen in (29) they are compatible with purpose clauses and instruments:

Given these pattern, in parallel to Öztürk & Taylan (2017), we take the constructions with -u(r) as having a transitive construction involving both an initiator and an undergoer layer and we conclude that they are not like passives. At this point one can ask the difference between the use of AIC and -u(r) constructions, given that we argue both are transitive. Both unaccusatives with -u(r) and AICs take nominative marked subjects and -n-set agreement and hence are very similar to one another. However, there is a clear difference in meaning as shown in (30a-b), which was discussed in Öztürk & Taylan (2017). If one wants to highlight the natural property or the state of the undergoer (i.e. the metal has the intrinsic property of bending, e.g. copper, or it is in a bent state), then the verb takes -u(r) as in (30a). The verb in (30b), on the other hand, being marked with the valency marker i- necessarily implies the presence of an external factor, i.e. a human agent, that brings about the change. This means that a verb with an object that does not have the intrinsic property of bending (e.g. steel) is typically used with AICs, but not with -u(r). Thus, AIC strictly indicates that the external factor is a human agent, whereas -u(r) is compatible with non-human external factors and it is typically used when the event is an intrinsic property of undergoer. As we will discuss in section 6, the language pays particular attention to the types of initiator/causation as an Initiation language in the sense of Ritter & Rosen (2000). That is why it makes use of several different patterns highlighting the use of different types of initiators:

It is possible to detect a syntactically active initiator position even in the case of internally caused change of state verbs, such as bloom, rot, decay, illustrated in (31) which are also compatible with -u(r).

We again argue that these internally caused predicates also involve an InitP layer in their syntax, which introduces a coindexed covert initiator. It is possible to use these constructions with a purpose clause as in (32):

Furthermore, as seen in (33), it is possible to paraphrase the internally caused predicate with a reflexive construction. The pattern in (33) with the presence of the ergative case and the third person agreement marker –s looks very similar to reflexives which host the clitic i- in their object position as in the example (13a) above. The important point here is that (33) still retains the intransitive reading but implies that the undergoer has more internal control over the caused change in comparison to the construction with nominative subjects in (32). Similar to the case above it is possible to combine this construction with a purpose clause:

To summarize, both externally and internally caused change of state verbs provide evidence for a syntactically active initiator position. Therefore, they do not pattern with intransitive constructions such as passives and anticausatives available in languages like English. The representations in (34) and (35) depicts the structures we propose for externally and internally caused change of state verbs, respectively:

Given that we have established that there are no true unaccusative structures in PL, now we will move onto the discussion of unergatives, which we will also argue to have a transitive structure.

5 Transitive Unergatives

As seen in the discussion above, both AICs and change of state verbs with -u(r) which seemingly surface with an unaccusative pattern behave transitively in terms of their syntactic architecture in PL. There is no syntactic argument suppression which would yield a true unaccusative pattern consisting of only the ProcP and ResP layers in PL. Both the initiator and the undergoer(/resultee) positions are syntactically active, yielding a transitive syntax, but they do not have to be overtly realized. The initiator position is associated with ergative case, while the undergoer(/resultee) is associated with nominative case. By manipulating case, agreement and TS patterns it is possible to foreground or background either the initiator or the undergoer(/resultee) of the event that the verb denotes in PL. Given the strict transitive pattern, the initiator and the undergoer cannot be dissociated from one another in syntax. Keeping this pattern in mind let us now turn back to the question we have raised at the end of section 3, that is, whether unergatives with the pronominal clitic i- have a transitive syntax or not, which we will answer affirmatively below.

6 Ritter & Rosen (2000): PL as an I-language

As seen in the above discussion, we have argued that unergatives in PL have a transitive syntax, which we take to extend to all types of eventive verbs in PL including unaccusatives. Hence, Neo-Burzio Dependency is very strictly observed in PL. All eventive verbs including unergatives and unaccusatives always form a transitive pattern retaining both the initiator and the undergoer positions available in syntax exhibiting a co-dependency. Hence, there are no truly single argument verbs in the language and also no voice phenomena yielding monovalent verbs, such as passives or anticausatives. In order to have an eventive dynamic structure transitivity requirement should be observed. However, even though there are no true single argument verbs in PL, the language still exhibits patterns analogous to unergative and unaccusative predicates found in languages like English. This is achieved through different case, agreement and TS patterns as extensively discussed above.

The question which raises at this point is why PL exhibits such a strong co-dependency requirement. Is there an underlying reason for this pattern to emerge given the general typological properties of PL are concerned? We believe the typology proposed by Ritter & Rosen (2000) might provide an answer to this. Ritter & Rosen (2000) propose that languages can be split into two: I(nitiation)-languages and D(elimitation)-languages. I-languages base event status to the initial bound, while D-languages focus on the terminal bound of the event. Given this split, I- and D-languages exhibit different clustering properties:

D-languages can:

• group accomplishments with achievements

• exhibit sensitivity to the semantic and syntactic properties of the object, such as specificity, definiteness, case marking, person, etc.

• use accusative for delimiting objects

• show ergative splits based on perfective aspect/past tense

• have object agreement not specified for person features

I-languages can:

• group accomplishments with activities

• exhibit sensitivity to semantic and syntactic properties of the subject, such as agentivity and animacy

• make grammatical distinction between topic and subject

• show ergative splits on the basis of the properties of the subject

• have subject and object agreement specified for person features

• have quirky case subjects, animacy hierarchies

As extensively discussed by Öztürk & Taylan (2017), PL exhibits almost all the I-language properties listed above, and thus comes across as a good example of an I-language. First, in PL accomplishments and activities pattern together in terms of TSs, case and agreement suffixes as seen in (49):

Second, PL ergative split is based on the properties of the subject. Only initiators can take ergative case, while undergoer subjects appear as nominative.

Third, subject and object agreement in PL is specified for only person features, which surface with the prefixes in the preverbal domain as illustrated in (50):

Fourth, experiencer subjects taking dative case behave as a quirky subject as extensively discussed in Demirok (2013):

Fifth, PL does not exhibit any differentiated object marking which can be associated with telicity/delimitation. Delimitation can only be encoded through adverbial prefixes on the verb as in (52b):

Thus, as discussed by Öztürk & Taylan (2017), PL exhibits almost all the properties associated with I-languages by Ritter & Rosen (2000). As only the initial bound is used to define an eventuality as eventive, all eventive predicates should involve a layer introducing the initiator in syntax. The Neo-Burzio Dependency furthermore necessiates the projection of an object position. Thus, neither the initiator layer nor the object position can be canceled out if the predicate is to be interpreted as eventive. It is possible to cancel the initiator if the construction is to be interpreted as non-eventive as in the case of deverbal adjectival participles. As shown by Öztürk & Taylan (2017), the deverbal form can be used with a regular copula as in (53a) and also as the complement of the verb remain, as in (53b), indicating that it is truly adjectival in nature:

Furthermore, it is not surprising that we find the active alignment pattern that we observe in PL, where ergativity is generalized across all aspect and tense series unlike the case in Georgian. As a dependent case which appears on initiators, ergative case surfaces in all eventive predicates which would require an object position thanks to the Neo-Burzio Dependency.

Given the strict transitivity requirement for eventive predicates, one wonders the status of stative verbs in PL. Interestingly, most stative verbs share the same root with eventive transitive verbs in PL (cf. Taylan & Öztürk (2014). As seen in (54), the verb have/own is based on the verb bring, while the verbs believe and know are derived from the same root as convince and send as in (55) and (56), respectively:

The data in (54–56) might indicate that all verbs, even including the statives are always underlyingly dynamic/eventive and hence transitive in PL, that is, statives are obligatorily derived from dynamic verbs. This would imply that what we call a verb in PL must be dynamic in nature having a transitive syntax requiring both the initiator and the undergoer to be syntactically available.²⁰ However, in order to make such a strong claim we have to investigate the nature of different types of stative predicates in PL, which does not fall within the scope of this study.²¹ For the purposes of this study, we will propose that the transitivity requirement holds only for eventive verbs in PL and leave the issue of stative verbs for future research.

7 Conclusion

The aim of this study was to argue that all unergatives in PL have a transitive structure. We have shown that not only unergatives but also unaccusatives, in fact, have a transitive architecture, involving both an initiator and an undergoer. Hence we have argued for the lack of a syntactic split between single argument verbs as unergatives and unaccusatives in PL. Even though there is no syntactic difference between unergatives and unaccusatives, at the level of morphology each verb type is associated with different TSs, case and agreement patterns which are used to foreground either the initiator or the undergoer/resultee of the event given the transitive syntax.²²

The transitivity requirement has two components. Firstly, Neo-Burzio Dependency is very strictly observed in PL, so that only when there is a lower argument, the external argument can be interpreted as an initiator/agent. Secondly, as PL comes across as a very conservative I-language under Ritter & Rosen (2000)’s typology, the initiator layer has to be present with all eventive verb types. Thus, due to the obligatory presence of an initiator layer in eventive predicates in an I-language like PL, it is not possible to find truly non-active voice patterns, such as anticausatives. We speculate that such voice patterns will only be available in D-languages, which can define an eventuality as eventive based on the terminal bound. Whether there are languages with typologically mixed patterns should be further investigated which we leave for future research.

Abbreviations

1 = first person, 2 = second person, 3 = third person, ABL = ablative, ALL = allative, APPL = applicative, CAUS = causative, COP = copula, DAT = dative, ERG = ergative, GEN = genitive, IMPF = imperfect, NACT = non-active, NEG = negation, NMZL = nominalizer, NOM = nominative, OBJ = object, PASS = passive, PL = plural, POSS = possessive, PV = preverb, PRS = present, PTCP = participle, PST = past, REFL = reflexive, SBJ = subject, TS = thematic suffix, VAL = valency.

Competing Interests

The author has no competing interests to declare.