inaccusativity

Inaccusativity is a grammatical property of verbs that do not take a direct object. In English, inaccusative verbs are often used to describe states or changes of state, rather than actions that are performed on someone or something. These verbs do not require an object to complete their meaning, unlike transitive verbs, which do.

Examples of inaccusative verbs in English include "arrive," "appear," "collapse," "die," "fade," "fall," "freeze," "grow," "happen," "increase," "open," "rain," "rise," "sink," "sleep," "snow," "thaw," and "wake." These verbs can be used without an object, as in "The sun rose," or "It rained heavily."

Inaccusative verbs are often contrasted with unaccusative verbs, which are a subset of inaccusative verbs that undergo certain syntactic and semantic restrictions. Unaccusative verbs are typically used to describe changes of state that do not involve an agent, such as "break" or "melt."

The distinction between inaccusative and unaccusative verbs is important in linguistics, as it helps to explain the syntactic and semantic properties of verbs in different languages. However, the exact criteria for distinguishing between these two types of verbs can vary depending on the linguistic theory being used.