unaccusative

Meanings

Adjective

• Intransitive and having an experiencer as its subject, that is, the (syntactic) subject is not a (semantic) agent.

Noun

• An unaccusative verb.

Related

Opposite words

• unergative
• transitive

Narrower meaning words

• intransitive

Origin

• un- + accusative, from the fact that in a nominative-accusative language, the accusative case, which marks the direct object of a transitive verb, typically marks the non-volitional role. In unaccusative verbs, the non-volitional arguments do not take the accusative case.