The Gothic Resultative

Gothic is unique among Germanic languages in regards to the ways it expresses non-agentive actions. It both retains a formal passive and has two periphrastic passives. In addition it presents an intransitive verb class with generally inchoative meaning. R. Moses Katz examines the semantics of these categories and shows how they provide a robust non-agentive paradigm in Gothic, including a functional, result-state perfect in the passive. In two parts, he examines first the inchoative verb and then the periphrastic passive. He proposes that the development of both types is underpinned by a single argument structure based on the resultative, a coordinated event type that links a transition with a resulting state.