المستخلص: |
The aim of this paper is to examine and investigate the syntactic, morphological and semantic characteristics of unaccusative verbs and constructions in English and Arabic languages. We argue that even though Arabic and English relate to different language families, nonetheless both show striking similarities regarding the unaccusative constructions. In particular, we argue that the syntactic similarities between unaccusative constructions and passive constructions, do not account for the morphological and semantic differences between the two constructions in both languages. In this paper we adopt an analytic comparative approach; in which the unaccusativity phenomenon is presented, then English and Arabic unaccusative constructions are analyzed and compared showing both syntactic, semantic and morphological similarities and differences. All English verb-classes that subcategorize for unaccusative statues are classified followed by Arabic Unaccusatives. Finally, the semantic and morphological differences between unaccusative and passive constructions are made evident in both languages.
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