Verb name

Question

They marched prisoners.Prisoners marched.What's the grammatical name of verbs which may take its objects as subjects, as above, in active constructions?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

AnonymousThey marched prisoners.Prisoners marched.What's the grammatical name of verbs which may take its objects as subjects, as above, in active constructions?

I believe you are thinking of ergative verbs like "break":

Tom broke the plate.<< "unmarked" form; transitive.
The plate broke.

However, I don't think "march" is in this category because the unmarked form is the intransitive form. It is somewhat a matter of intuition which is the unmarked form. You may have to research this further.

The prisoners marched.<< "unmarked" form; intransitive.
They marched the prisoners.
_________

As far as I know, the only special name for verbs like "march" is Run Verbs (a subclass of Manner of Motion Verbs), and only those Run Verbs that allow the Induced Action Alternation, e.g., run, walk, march, hurry, jump, parade, race, rush, slide, ....

CJ

Update: Wikipedia does classify verbs like run, walk, march, etc. as "ergative verbs of motion" and these verbs, and verbs like them, do occur in lists of ergative verbs that can be found online. It still seems to me, however, that these do not have exactly the same properties as other ergative verbs.

Anonymous · Answer

CalifJimI believe you are thinking of ergative verbs like "break"

Indeed, that's what I've forgotten and couldn't recall it.

Thank you very much for detailed explanation.

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