Presentasi AICLL 2022

1. VERB "COUGH" IN ENGLISH AND
INDONESIAN:
UNACUSATIVE OR UNERGATIVE?
REZKY KHOIRINA TARIHORAN
MULYADI
Presented at The 4th AICLL 2022

2. INTRODUCTION
• Every language has three distinct sorts of
verbs, which are classified according to
the number of arguments they contain.
• In linguistics, an argument is an
expression that helps complete the
meaning of a predicate.

3. • Three arguments are required for ditransitive
verbs, two for transitive verbs, and one for
intransitive verbs.
• Numerous linguists have conducted
additional research on intransitive verbs, one
of whom being Perlmutter (1978).
• He further splits intransitive verbs into two
categories, unergative verbs and
unacussative verbs.

4. • This is described in his idea, dubbed the
Unaccousative Hypothesis, which was
eventually incorporated into Burzio's
Government and Binding Theory (Burzio,
1986).
• Essentially, the distinction between
unergative and unacusative verbs is
predicated on the thematic role projected
by the verb's sole argument.

5. • Unergative verbs are a subclass of
intransitives that take Agent as their
subject.
• Agent – The entity that intentionally
carries out the action of the verb.
• For example in the sentence Jill smiled ¸
the verb smile shows a subcategorization
for the subject argument Jill who is
responsible or has control over the events
symbolized by the verb.

6. • Unaccusative verbs are a subtype of
intransitive verbs that accept
Theme/Patient as their subject and are
impacted by the verb's symbol (Kijparnich,
2011).
• Patient-- the participant of a situation
upon whom an action is carried out.
• Theme-- The entity that directly
receives the action of the verb.
• Stative verbs act on themes, and dynamic
verbs act on patients.

7. • Example: the clauses "the tree fell" and
"the glass broke“.
• It is possible to think of actions in words
like falling and breaking as something that
happens to the subject rather than
something that is initiated by the subject.
• In terms of harmony, intransitive verbs with
a parallel argument S to P and intransitive
verbs with a parallel argument S to A are
referred to as unaccusative and
unergative, respectively (You, 2014).

8. • Based on the assumptions stated above, the purpose of
this study is to determine if an intransitive verb
belongs to the same dichotomy (unergative and
unaccusative) in two different languages.
• The verb studied in this study was "cough" in both
English and Indonesian.
• According to Dowty's(1991) categorization of verbs, the
verb cough in English belongs to the kind of
accomplishments associated to instant events.
• Meanwhile, Mulyadi classifies this verb in Indonesian as
Process type with bodily process sub-type, because
process verb has just one participant. Because the
solitary participant is subjected to a change in
circumstances and is not the controller of the activity, his
semantic role is defined as a sufferer (Mulyadi, 2009).

9. • Separate tests are used to determine
whether this verb belongs to the same
dichotomy in two different languages.
• In English, this verb was investigated
using the diagnostic unaccusativity that
Burzio (1986) , Levin and Rappaport
Hovav(Sleeth, 1996), and Alexiadou et al.
(Everaert, 2010) have employed.
• (1) auxiliary selection, (2) causative
alteration, (3) reflexive constructions, (4)
adjective participles, (5) there-insertion,
and (6) locative inversion.

10. • Meanwhile, this verb will be investigated in
Indonesian using Sawardi's (2008) criteria.
According to him, intransitive verbs can be
classified into two types: those with an
argument that can be nominalized with the
affix peN-, implying that the argument is
similar to an agent, and those with an
argument that cannot be nominalized with
the affix peN-, implying that the argument
is similar to the patient.

11. RESEARCH METHOD
• The method used in this study is a descriptive method, which is to
parse and provide an explanation of the verb cough in English
and Indonesian and classify it into unaccusative or unergative
verbs.
• Meanwhile, based on the type of data, this research is a corpus-
based research because the corpus of data used is in the form of
text which is a fragment of a sentence containing the use of cough
verbs in various forms, both in English and Indonesian.
• The corpus used is the Google Book Corpus for English and the
Corpora Collection Leipzig for Indonesian.

12. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
1. ENGLISH
1) Auxiliary Selection
• According to Dabrowska (2016), auxiliary selection diagnostic is commonly used in
Western European languages, but it cannot be used in English, especially Modern
English, because to the lack of auxiliary selection.
1) a. French:
unaccusative: Je suis tombé. lit. “I am fallen” (= “I have fallen”).
unergative: J’ai travaillé. “I have worked”.
b. Italian:
unaccusative: È arrivato. lit. “[He] is arrived.” (= “He has arrived”).
unergative: Ha telefonato. “[He] has phoned”.
Whereas this does not apply in English, due to the fact that English only
contains an auxiliary verb “have” to demonstrate the perfect form.

13. If applied with the verb "cough", it will get the following form:
(8) He has coughed up blood several times in the last few weeks.
(Holmström, B., Glendinning, E. H., 2005)
(9) If any blood is coughed up, the doctor notes its color and the
amount of blood. (The Merck Manual Go-To Home Guide for
Symptoms., 2013)
Data (8) and (9) were taken from Google Corpus Books. Interestingly, the word
cough when combined with the auxiliary has (a form of have) is only found in
the form of phrasal verbs, namely coughed up. Likewise, when the verb cough
is combined with be it is only found in the phrasal verb coughed up. Meanwhile
data (9) is not a perfect form, but passive. So, it can be said that the verb
cough is unergative.

14. 2) Causative Alteration
Levin and Rappaport Hovav (Sleeth, 1996) claim in the diagnostic causative
alteration tool that unaccusative verbs participate in causal alteration while
unergative verbs do not. This means that uncussative verbs can take on two
forms, transitive and intransitive, as illustrated in Example (2):
(2) a. Transitive Use (Causative): Maria opened the door.
b. Intransitive Use (Anticausative): The door opened.
However, this does not apply to the verb cough, which is unacceptable in
English.
(12) A man coughed.
The cold coughed the man* (It was meant to express that the man
coughed as a result of the cold)
Thus, based on this test, the verb cough is classified as a unergative
verb.

15. 3) Resultative Construction
Levin and Rappaport Hovav (Sleeth, 1996) claim that the resultative
phrase in intransitive verbs is separated into two types: unaccusative
(3a-b), which comes alongside the resultative phrase, and unergative
(3c), which lacks this construction unless when it contains "fake"
reflexive, as in (3d).
• (3) a. The river froze solid. (Unaccusative)
• b. The bottle broke open / into pieces. (Unaccusative)
• c. *Dora shouted hoarse. (Unergative)
• d. Dora shouted herself hoarse. (Unergative)

16. From Google Books Corpus found the following data:
(13) Frankie sputtered and coughed awake. He stared at me with hatred in his
eyes. (Chandler, J., 2019)
(14) The truck coughed awake and with its single headlamp burning, rattled
across the desert, following the meteor's path. (Stephenson, 2019)
(15) I turned the key, and Vic's old engine coughed awake. (Askew, 2019)
It can be seen that the 3 data above are obtained from literary works. And it can
also be seen that the subject of the 2 data above (14 and 15) is inanimate.
Although this form looks like a resultative phrase, the truth needs to be looked
at again. In the 3 data above, the word awake is not the result of the activity of
the verb cough. Rather, this phrase explains that someone/something is
“awakened” by coughing, or waking up while coughing.

17. However, there are also examples such as in the following sentence:
(16) The little boy grabbed the jug and began to pour some water into
his grandfather's mouth until the old man coughed himself awake.
(Maheeb, 2017)
Data (16) describes the use of the verb cough combined with false
reflexive help. False reflexive is one of the characteristics of unergative
verbs. So, in this case, it can be concluded that the verb cough is
included in the unergative verb.

18. 4) Adjectival Participle
As shown in the following example, a transitive verb takes
the participle as the attributive predicate of the noun that
functions as its direct object (4a). Unlike unacussative
verbs, these prenominal adjectives cannot be derived from
unergative verbs (Shardl, 2010), as seen in (4b) and (4c).
(4) a. a bought pen (transitive verb)
b. *the phoned girl (unergative verb)
c. a fallen angel (unaccusative telic)

19. Through a search with Google Book Corpus, there is only a few data
regarding the formation of prenominal adjectives from the verb cough.
(17) It broke out of me in a coughed sob. (Lanyon, 2019)
(18) Emory Preston's voice was a coughed croak, his throat
ravaged by smoke. (Jones, 2019)
The two data above are obtained from literary works in the form of
novels. As is well known, the language contained in many literary works
is in the form of metaphors or figurative language. In these 2 (two) data,
the cough in question does not mean a literal cough. Due to limited
data, it is difficult to conclude whether based on this diagnostic tool
cough verbs can be classified as unaccusative or unergative.

20. 5&6) There-Insertion and Locative Inversion
In both the there-insertion construction (5) and the locative-inversion (6)
construction, the single argument of the intransitive verb appears to be
in the syntactic position of the transitive verb object. This structure is
claimed to be allowed with unaccusative but not with unergative verbs
(Shardl, 2010).
(5) There-insertion
a. There appeared a lady on the scene. (unaccusative verb)
b. *There laughed a girl in the room (unergative verb).
(6) Locative inversion
a. Into the room came a man (unaccusative verb).
b. *In the room laughed a girl (unergative verb).

21. Based on a search through Google Book Corpus, no data was found showing that the
verb cough can be inserted with the word there.
(19) a. There came a man in the room. (unaccusative)
b. There coughed a lady in the room*
So it can be said that based on the There-Insertion diagnostic tool, the verb
cough is a unergative type of verb.
Just like the Google Book Corpus search results on the previous diagnostic tool, there
are also no results related to the locative inversion of the verb cough.
(20) a. In a little white house lived two rabbits. (Unaccusative)
b. In the hall coughed my sister*
Thus it can be said that based on the Locative Inversion diagnostic tool, the
verb cough is a unaccusative type of verb.

22. Based on the results of the analysis using
the 6 (six) diagnostic tools that have been
mentioned, the results are 4 (four) of the 6
(six) diagnostic tools, namely causative
alteration, resultative construction, there-
insertion, and locative inversion, proving
that the verb cough belongs to the type
unergative, which means that the subject of
the verb cough acts as the agent in English.

23. 2. INDONESIAN LANGUAGE
• F.X Sawardi's FINDING PARAMETERS OF DISTRIBUTION
BEHAVIOR IN INDONESIAN LANGUAGE (2008).
• He claims in his research that Indonesian verbs may be classified
into two types: intransitive verbs with arguments that can be
nominalized with peN- (i.e., agent-like arguments) and intransitive
verbs with arguments that cannot be nominalized with peN-
(patient-like argument).
• For instance:
(21) Bertanya Penanya
Mengembara Pengembara
Tertawa Penertawa

24. Furthermore, Sawardi explained that there
are also types of intransitive verbs that
cannot be nominalized with either pen- or
pe-. This verb has a patient-like argument.
For instance:
(22) Menangis Petangis*
Jatuh Pejatuh*
Tumbang Penumbang*

25. • An examination of the Corpora Collection
Leipzig's Indonesian corpus reveals no
evidence that the verb cough can be
nominalized as pembatuk or pebatuk.
•
• (23) Batuk Pebatuk*
•
• Thus, based on this feature, it can be
deduced that the cough verb belongs to
the unaccusative verb type in
Indonesian.

26. CONCLUSION
• There are two distinct outcomes from the analysis conducted in two (two) languages,
namely English and Indonesian. In English, it was discovered that four (four) of the
diagnostic tools for unaccusitivity developed by Alexiadou et al., namely causative
alteration, resultative construction, there-insertion, and locative inverversion,
demonstrate that the verb cough does not meet the requirements of a unaccussative
verb. As a result, the English verb cough is a unergative verb.
• Meanwhile, in Indonesian, using the parameters developed by Sawardi et al, it
was found that the cough verb is included as a unacussative verb because the cough
verb cannot be nominated with the affix peN-, so the argument is similar to patient
(unaccusative verb).
• There appears to be a need for more research into diagnostic tools for
unaccusitivity in English, as all diagnostic methods established to far have been for
Western European languages; no one has developed diagnostic tools particularly for
English. Similarly in Indonesian, there is currently no diagnostic tool created
particularly for Indonesian. There is only 1 (one) parameter developed by Sawardi et
al. So this can be considered for future research.
•

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