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This paper focuses on some Hittite periphrastic constructions that exhibit alternation of ‘have’ and ‘be’ within the same verb, paršnai- ‘to squat’. It is suggested that the systemic variation in auxiliary selection is determined by a semantic notion whose components are organised along a typicality scale ranging from core to periphery. By identifying the semantic properties that constitute unaccusativity, we will seek to establish how these properties are combined and how their subsets are ordered. Based on evidence from various languages with auxiliary alternation according to verb class, it will be demonstrated how auxiliary selection in Hittite could be sensitive to the semantics of predicates, particularly agentivity.