Many languages have two types of verbs that can be used either intransitively or transitively: for one type of such verbs, the intransitive subject corresponds with the transitive subject, as in English he is eating and he is eating lunch, whereas for the other, the intransitive subject corresponds with the transitive object, as in English the stick broke and he broke the stick.
North Alaskan Iñupiaq Eskimo is one such language, where these two types of verbs are called agentive and patientive verb bases, and this book is an investigation of these verb bases in this language. After...