Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 16, 2026

Examining Online Syntactic Processing of Spoken Complex Sentences in Chinese Using Dual-Modal Interference Tasks
Published on: September 5, 2019
Marked unergatives: Syntactic ergativity and nominalizations
Jens Hopperdietzel1,2, Artemis Alexiadou3,4
1Department of German Language and Literature I, University of Cologne, Albertus Magnus Platz, 50923 Cologne, Germany.
None:
Samoan deverbal nominalizations show a crosslinguistically rare tripartite-inactive alignment where unaccusative, unergative, and transitive subjects are distinguished by inalienable genitive, alienable genitive, and ergative case, respectively, with objects being marked like unaccusative subjects (Mosel 1992). In addition, subject clitics exhibit a marked unergative alignment, where only unergative subject clitics are distinctly marked by alienable genitive case, whereas all other arguments receive inalienable genitive case. In this study, we demonstrate that these alignments follow naturally from a language-specific combination of independently established phenomena, including (i) prepositional ergativity (Polinsky 2016), (ii) split (in)alienability (Myler 2016; Alexiadou 2003), (iii) split-intransitivity, (iv) the unaccusative restriction on nominalizations (Imanishi 2014; Alexiadou 2001), and (v) a nonuniform nature of clitic pronouns (Bleam 2000), and therefore provides novel evidence for each of these phenomena. Comparing the distribution of ergative case in nominalizations crosslinguistically, we argue that the source of ergativity varies across languages and suggest that the split between syntactic and morphological ergativity cannot be reduced to a category-split of ergative subjects.
Related Concept Videos
meta-Directing Deactivators: –NO2, –CN, –CHO, –⁠CO2R, –COR, –CO2H
Directing Effect of Substituents: meta-Directing Groups
Regioselectivity of Electrophilic Additions to Alkenes: Markovnikov's Rule
The hydrohalogenation of an unsymmetrical alkene can yield two haloalkane products, depending on which vinylic carbon takes up the halogen. However, one product usually predominates, where hydrogen adds to the vinylic carbon bearing the...
Nominal Level of Measurement
The data that cannot be measured but can be grouped into categories fall under the nominal level of measurement. Data that is measured using a nominal...
Agonism and Antagonism: Quantification
To quantify these effects, researchers use a dose-response curve, which provides valuable information about the potency and efficacy of a drug. Potency refers to...
ortho–para-Directing Activators: –CH3, –OH, –⁠NH2, –OCH3

