Basic English Grammar with Exercises

Exercise 4

e) The verb sink is an ergative verb. Ergative verbs are similar to unaccusatives
insofar as they take a theme argument, which occupies the specifier of the VP. The
difference is that in sentences which contain an ergative verb, an agent can also be
present. We could see this in sentence (d), where we had the agent DP John. If the
agent is not there, the vP will not be projected either. It is actually the abstract light
verb in v which requires an agent DP in (4). If there is no v, no agent argument is
required. The only argument of the verb cannot receive Case in its base position as it
did in (4) since in this structure there is no v head which can assign accusative Case.
The I head is not a possible assigner of accusative Case. So the DP Jim’s boat has to
move to the specifier of IP, where the I head assigns nominative Case to it. The
themtic verb also moves, first to the tense v, then to I to agree with the subject.

(5) CP

C'

C IP

DP 1 I'

Jim’s boat I vP

sank2+3 v'

v VP

t2+t 3 t 1 V'

V

t 2