SEMANTICS OF THE SUBJECT IN AN ERGATIVE CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenon of ergativity in English within the framework of linguistic typology. Despite the well-established classification of English as a nominative language, it exhibits ergative constructions that challenge its traditional subject–object opposition. The relevance of this research stems from the need to reassess established linguistic theories in light of new methodological approaches, made possible by advances in corpus linguistics and access to large-scale empirical data. The first stage of this study involves identifying the specific features of ergative constructions in English using the verbs open and close as a case study. This is achieved by evaluating the communicative significance of ergative constructions in comparison to their nominative counterparts and by classifying the types of subjects that appear in ergative constructions. The research methodology relies on corpus analysis of data from the News on the Web (NOW) corpus. A comparative analysis was conducted to examine the distribution of ergative versus nominative constructions in English. Additionally, the left context of the verbs open and close was analyzed to categorize the types of subjects occurring in ergative constructions. The results indicate that, although nominative constructions predominate, ergative constructions retain distinct communicative significance. The analysis reveals that subjects in these constructions are exclusively inanimate nouns, which can be categorized into four types: boundaries (physical, temporal, and virtual); functional zones of human activity; artifacts; and events. In ergative constructions with the verb close, the subject position is occupied exclusively by nouns from the first three categories. Further comprehensive analysis of ergativity in English, extended to a broader range of verbs, is required.