Anticausative verb

In English, many anticausatives are of the class of "alternating ambitransitive verbs", where the alternation between transitive and intransitive forms produces a change of the position of the patient role (the transitive form has a patientive direct object, and this becomes the patientive subject in the intransitive). This phenomenon is called causative alternation. For example:

• He broke the window. → The window broke.
• Some pirates sank the ship. → The ship sank.

Passive voice is not an anticausative construction. In passive voice, the agent of causation is demoted from its position as a core argument (the subject), but it can optionally be re-introduced using an adjunct (in English, commonly, a by-phrase). In the examples above, The window was broken, The ship was sunk would clearly indicate causation, though without making it explicit.

In the Romance languages, many anticausative verbs are formed through a pseudo-reflexive construction, using a clitic pronoun (which is identical to the non-emphatic reflexive pronoun) applied on a transitive verb. For example (in Spanish, using the clitic se):

• El vidrio se quebró. "The glass shattered." (Infinitive: quebrar + se)
• Se está hundiendo el barco or El barco se está hundiendo or El barco está hundiéndose. "The boat is sinking." (Verbal periphrasis or compound verb: estar hundiendo + se in different positions, from the Infinitive: hundirse)

Another example in French:

• Les poissons se pêchaient et se vendaient. "Fish were being fished and sold."

In the Slavic languages, the use is essentially the same as in the Romance languages. For example (in Serbo-Croatian, using se):

• Staklo se razbilo. "The glass shattered."

In East Slavic languages (such as Russian), the pronoun se becomes postfix sya (or s' after a vowel in Russian).

• Стекло разбилось. (Steklo razbilos'.) "The glass shattered."
• Речка разливается. (Rechka razlivayetsya.) "The river is flooding."

The suffix "sya" has a large number of uses and does not necessarily denote anticausativity (or even intransitivity). However, in most cases it denotes either passive voice or one of the subclasses of reflexivity (anticausativity, reciprocity, etc.)

There is a class of verbs (deponent verbs, отложительные глаголы otlozhitel'nye glagoly) which only exist in this reflexive form (the suffix sya can't be removed). These are commonly anticausative or autocausative, and commonly refer to emotions, behavior, or factors outside one's control.[1]

• Иван надеется поступить в университет. (Ivan nadeyetsya postupit' v universitet.) "Ivan hopes to be admitted to the university."
• Остановка автобуса оказалась рядом с нашей гостиницей. (Ostanovka avtobusa okazalas' ryadom s nashey gostinitsey.) "The bus stop turned out to be near to our hotel."

In addition, a verb may be put into an unaccusative/anticausative form by forming an impersonal sentence, with the verb typically either in its past tense neuter form, or in its present tense third person form:

• Штирлица тянуло на родину. (Shtirlitsa tyanylo na rodinu) "Stirlitz felt himself being drawn to the motherland." Literally, "[It] was dragging Stirlitz to the motherland".
• Из окна дуло. (Iz okna dulo.) "There was a draft from the window." Literally, "From the window [it] was blowing." Note that the verb has neither agent nor patient, and therefore has valency zero: it is in the impersonal passive voice.

Here as well there is a class of "impersonal verbs", which only exist in this impersonal form:

• Ивана тошнит. (Ivana toshnit.) "Ivan is feeling nauseous." Literally, "[It] is making Ivan nauseous." The verb тошнить (toshnit') has no standard personal form: instead of *Эта рыба меня тошнит (*Eta ryba menya toshnit), to say "This fish is making me nauseous" one must say От этой рыбы меня тошнит (Ot etoy ryby menya toshnit) "Because of this fish, [it] is making me nauseous", where "it" is not "fish" but something that remains unspecified. (The personal form has, however, entered Russian vernacular, in the meaning "to irritate" or "to pester".)
• Мне везет в картах. (Mne vezyot v kartakh.) "I am lucky at cards." Literally, "[It] transports [things] for me at cards."

In the Arabic language the form VII has the anticausative meaning.

• "yanqalibu" means "he himself changes" (the cause of his change is not known).

Urdu also abounds in such verbs. A very large number of antiaccusative verbs are used in it.

• "khānā pak rahā he" "کھانا پک رہا ہے" "The food is cooking."
• "pānī ubal rahā he" "پانی ابل رہا ہے" "The water is boiling."

In Standard Japanese, productive morphology highly favors transitivization, in the sense that it has productive causativization, but no anticausativization. In the Hokkaido dialects and Northern Tōhoku dialect, however, the anticausative morpheme /rasar/ is employed with some verbs, such as maku 'to roll', tsumu 'to load', and okuru 'to send' as a means of producing an intransitive verb from a transitive verb.[2]

Bardi is an Australian Aboriginal language in the Nyulnyulan family which uses the root -jiidi- 'go' to denote anticausatives as part of complex predicate constructions. For example, whereas one might causatively 'close' a door with the following construction:

• boonda - ma - (y ERG closes x ABS)

a door might 'close' with the following construction

• boonda - jiidi - (x ABS closes)

In the underived construction, the light verb -ma- "put" is used with a coverb (or preverb) boonda 'close'. In the anticausative construction, the light verb reduces the valency of the predicate and the item which is closed becomes the subject. This is a regular alternation among complex predicates.