Unaccusative Verbs in Runyambo: Burzio’s Generalization Approach

The study focused on Unaccusative verbs in Runyambo, a Bantu language spoken in Kagera region in Tanzania. The study was specifically conducted at Katera village found at Kyerwa district in Kagera region. The study drew inspiration from Burzio’s Generalization Approach focusing on Intransitive Unaccusative verbs in Runyambo. It employed a qualitative research approach to explore complex data, to gain insight into people's experiences about unaccusative verbs in Runyambo. Snowball and purposive sampling techniques were used to select informants. In this study, the target population were all native speakers of Runyambo from whom the sample of 4 was selected to represent others to come up with information needed. Data collection methods included sentence questionnaires and extraction from written materials. The data were analyzed descriptively using thematic analysis and tree diagrams. Tree diagrams are typically used to express the phrase structure in all versions of Transformational Grammar (TG), and to show the relationship between the D- Structure and S-Structure of the sentence and all NPs movements at the S-Structure. The findings reveal that in Runyambo, there are intransitive verbs which have a status of unaccusative verbs. They are known as intransitive unaccusative verbs because they cannot assign external theta role as well as accusative case. They do not possess an external argument at D-S. Intransitive unaccusative verbs carry only internal argument at D-S. They have the same features presented by Burzio’s Generalization Approach in verbs 3. The researcher recommends more studies to be conducted on the other Bantu language and non-Bantu language.