Word.ws English Dictionary

unergative

UK/ʌnˈɜːɡətɪv/US/ʌnˈɝɡətɪv/

unergative adjective: intransitive and having an agent as its subject.

Adjective

unergative (not comparable)

  1. Intransitive and having an agent as its subject.
    • In Section 1 I will discuss the existence of a class of ergative adjectives in Dutch[…]. It will be demonstrated that there are a number of arguments supporting the claim that the class of adjectives should be divided into ergative and unergative adjectives. A large number of adjectives that are...2000, Hans Bennis, “Adjectives and Argument Structure”, in Peter Coopmans, Martin Everaert, Jane Grimshaw, editors, Lexical Specification and Insertion (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory; 197)...

Noun

unergative (plural unergatives)

  1. An unergative verb.
    • We have seen that Unergatives and Unaccusatives differ in 1) permitting the derivation of an Impersonal Passive, and 2) in licensing purpose clauses, since Unergatives have active subjects, and Unaccusatives do not.1998, Eloise Jelinek, Voice and Transitivity as Functional Projections in Yaqui, in Miriam Butt and Wilhelm Geuder, eds., “The Projection of Arguments”

Antonyms of unergative

Forms of unergative

pluralunergatives

Origin of unergative

From un- + ergative, from the fact that in an ergative-absolutive language, the only case which uniquely identifies a volitional argument is the ergative case, which marks the agent of a transitive verb.

Words formed from unergative

Questions about unergative

What does unergative mean?
Unergative means intransitive and having an agent as its subject.
What part of speech is unergative?
Unergative can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce unergative?
Unergative is pronounced /ʌnˈɜːɡətɪv/ (UK).

Words near unergative in the dictionary

  1. unerasing
  2. unerasure
  3. unerect
  4. unerectable
  5. unerected
  6. unergative
  7. unergatively
  8. unergatives
  9. unergativity
  10. unergonomic
  11. unergonomically

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unergative (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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