Martha McGinnis: Unaccusatives and special meaning

[Martha McGinnis]

Dear DM-list,

In their book "Unaccusativity," Levin & Rappaport-Hovav argue that
verbs undergoing the causative alternation are underlyingly
transitive.  One of their arguments is based on the claim that these
verbs are more restricted in their intransitive use than in their
transitive use:

(1) a. I broke the record/the promise/the contract.
     b.*The record/the promise/the contract broke.

(2) a. The waiter cleared the table.
     b.*The table cleared.

If true, this claim is a bit problematic for a "DM-style" analysis of
the alternation, whereby a root can combine either with a causative
little-v or an unaccusative little-v (cf. Harley, Nishiyama, Marantz,
Embick, L. Siegel, etc.).  Under such an approach, cases like (1) and
(2) are unproblematic, but there should be no general asymmetry: that
is, special uses of [unaccusative little-v + root] should be just as
possible as special uses of [causative little-v + root].

The theoretical "fixes" that first occurred to me turned out to make
their own wrong predictions, so I went back to the claim itself. I
think I've come up with some examples showing that actually there's
no asymmetry: in addition to cases like (1)-(2), there are also
intransitive uses that are impossible in the transitive, just as the
DM-style analysis predicts:

(3) a. My eyes popped.
     b.*{Bill/The news} popped my eyes.

(4) a. I snapped.
     b.*{Bill/The news} snapped me.

(5) a. The sun rose.
     b.*{God/The earth's rotation} raised the sun.

(6) a. My heart sank.
     b.*{Bill/The news} sank my heart.

(7) a. The penny dropped.
     b.*{Bill/The news} dropped the penny.

If there is no asymmetry, as these facts suggest, this settles a
long-standing dispute I've had with Heidi Harley as to whether
causatives properly contain inchoatives or not (i.e. whether or not
causative little-v is always just added on top of unaccusative
little-v).  She's always maintained they don't, and it would seem
that she's right.

If anyone has any comments, additional examples, etc., please send them along.

Cheers,
Martha

mcginnis at ucalgary.ca