Abstract:

Many abroad linguistics school have been studying Ergative Verbs. For example, typology linguisticsthink that ergative case, used to mark the agent of transitive clause, is a kind of morphological marker. Nevertheless, the object of transitive clause and the only argument of intransitive clause are usually absolutive form. This is the ergative--absolutive grammar system. In formal school, Perlmutter’s ‘Unaccusative Hypothesis’ and ‘Burzio Principle’ are quite famous.This thesis is based on foreign experts’ research results and Chinese scholars’ study on ergative phenomenon in Chinese and studies the semantic features of ergative verbs in Chinese,i.e., the relation between ergativity and causativity, and syntax of ergative verbs.

Key words: Chinese; ergative verbs; semantic features

摘要：在国外有许多学派研究作格动词。如类型学派认为，作格主要指一种形态标记，用来标记及物小句中的施事，而及物小句中的受事和不及物小句中的唯一论原则通常持通格形式，这就是所谓的通格——作格型语法系统；在形式学派中以Perlmutter(1978)的“非宾格假说”和“Burzio原则”最为著名。论文基于国外不同学派对作格动词的系统分类和解释，和国内专家学者对于古文与现代汉语中的作格现象的文献来研究汉语作格动词的语义特征——作格性和使役性的关系，作格动词的句法特征。

关键词： 汉语；作格动词；语义特征

Introduction     
Ergative verbs, also called unaccusative verbs, was derived from Greece. And it means cause, bring, about, create, whose core semantics is ‘causative’. We define ergative verbs, a grammar that the subject of intransitive verb and the object of  transitive verb have in common grammatically and formally.
(1a) Georage shattered the mirror. 乔治打碎了镜子。(S+V+O)
(1b) The mirror shattered. 镜子打碎了。(S+V)
Two sentences are in close relationship semantically and syntactically. The phenomenon that the argument can be placed at the position of subject and object is called ergative.
    This grammatical phenomenon was raised in Perlmutter’s ‘Unaccusative Hypothesis’ definitely, which holds that intransitive verbs can be divided into unaccusative verb and unergative verb.
Problems about Chinese ergative verbs in academic circles have been raised for nearly 30 years. Just like what is exactly the ergativity, is any process on ergative study and whether or not ergativity exists in Chinese? But no final conclusion has yet been reached on which ergative structure exists in Chinese. Many scholars have been studying ergative case, however, there is no standard to establish the ergative verbs.