Ergative Verb - in English

In English

In English, most verbs can be used intransitively, but ordinarily this does not change the role of the subject; consider, for example, "He ate the soup" (transitive) and "He ate" (intransitive), where the only difference is that the latter does not specify what was eaten. By contrast, with an ergative verb the role of the subject changes; consider "it broke the window" (transitive) and "the window broke" (intransitive).

Ergative verbs can be divided into several categories:

• Verbs suggesting a change of state — break, burst, form, heal, melt, tear, transform
• Verbs of cooking — bake, boil, cook, fry
• Verbs of movement — move, shake, sweep, turn, walk
• Verbs involving vehicles — drive, fly, reverse, run, sail

Some of these can be used intransitively in either sense: "I'm cooking the pasta" is fairly synonymous with both "The pasta is cooking" (as an ergative verb) and "I'm cooking", although it obviously gives more information than either.

Unlike a passive verb, a nominalization, an infinitive, or a gerund, which would allow the agent to be deleted but would also allow it to be included, the intransitive version of an ergative verb requires the agent to be deleted:

• "The window was broken" or "The window was broken by the burglar."
• " to break the window " or " for the burglar to break the window "
• " the breaking of the window " or " the breaking of the window by the burglar "
• "The window broke" but not *"The window broke by the burglar."

Indeed, the intransitive form of an ergative verb almost suggests that there is no agent. With some non-ergative verbs, this can be achieved using the reflexive voice:

• "He solved the problem."
• "The problem was solved" or "The problem was solved by him."
• "The problem solved itself" but not *"The problem solved itself by him."

In this case, however, the use of the reflexive voice strongly indicates the lack of an agent; where "John broke the window, or maybe Jack did — at any rate, the window broke" is understandable, if slightly unidiomatic, *"John solved the problem, or maybe Jack did — at any rate, the problem solved itself" is completely self-contradictory. Nonetheless, some grammarians would consider both "The window broke" and "The problem solved itself" to be examples of a distinct voice, the middle voice.

A particularly odd English ergative verb is "graduate": "he graduated from school" and "school graduated him" mean the same thing, although the latter usage has passed out of vogue, and one meets with occasional criticism of the intransitive form. With the latter usage, the verb is transitive, but with the former, the verb is intransitive.

The significance of the ergative verb is that it enables a writer or speaker not only to suppress the identity of the outside agent responsible for the particular process, but also to represent the affected party as in some way causing the action by which it is affected. This can be done neutrally when the affected party can be considered an institution or corporate entity and the individual member responsible for the action is unimportant, for example "the shop closed for the day". It can also be used by journalists sympathetic to a particular causative agent and wishing to avoid assigning blame, as in "Eight factories have closed this year."