Animacy
Merlan’s 1985 comparative study of eight languages with split intransitivity concluded that the more ‘marked’ intransitive class (not necessarily always the SA or SO class) consistently had one common property: with few or no exceptions, they required animate subjects. She noted that animacy is necessary but not sufficient: animate-subject verbs can also be found in the larger, unmarked class. She also pointed out that in one language, Georgian, verbs with non-animate subjects were found in the marked class, but that they were still relatable to animate-subject verbs in that they denoted ‘capacity for spontaneous manifestation of various (often externally perceptible) phenomena, for example production of noise, light, and displacement or other motion or transition without external agency’ (1985:350); examples included flicker, shine, flash, sparkle, tremble, turn, shake, flutter, crawl, trip, roam, thunder (1985:343).
Table 1. Agentive and patientive verbs in Cariban languages.
Table 2. Verbs with animate/inanimate subjects in Cariban languages.
In Cariban languages, as is shown in Table 2, verbs characteristically taking animate (or inanimate) subjects can be found in both classes.
