In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of

morphosyntactic alignment In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the grammatical relationship between arguments—specifically, between the two arguments (in English, subject and object) of transitive verbs like ''the dog chased the cat'', and the single argument ...

in which the single argument (" subject") of an

intransitive verb In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...

behaves like the

object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ...

of a

transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''. Transiti ...

, and differently from the

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...

of a transitive verb. Examples include

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

Mayan Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...

, and certain

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

(such as the

Kurdish languages Kurdish (, ) is a language or a group of languages spoken by Kurds in the geo-cultural region of Kurdistan and the Kurdish diaspora. Kurdish constitutes a dialect continuum, belonging to Western Iranian languages in the Indo-European language ...

and many

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...

Hindi–Urdu Hindustani (; Devanagari: , * * * * ; Perso-Arabic: , , ) is the ''lingua franca'' of Northern and Central India and Pakistan. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu. Thus, the langua ...

). It has controversially also been attributed to the Semitic modern Aramaic languages. This is in contrast to

nominative–accusative alignment In linguistic typology, nominative–accusative alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which subjects of intransitive verbs are treated like subjects of transitive verbs, and are distinguished from objects of transitive verbs in ...

, which is observed in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and most other Indo-European languages, where the single argument of an intransitive verb ("She" in the sentence "She walks") behaves grammatically like the agent of a transitive verb ("She" in the sentence "She finds it") but different from the object of a transitive verb ("her" in the sentence "He likes her"). When ergative–absolutive alignment is coded by

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...

, the case used for the single argument of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb is the

absolutive In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative� ...

, and the case used for the agent of a transitive verb is the ergative. In nominative-accusative languages, the case for the single argument of an intransitive verb and the agent of a transitive verb is the nominative, while the case for the direct object of a transitive verb is the

accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...

. Many languages have ergative–absolutive alignment only in some parts of their grammar (e.g., in the case marking of nouns), but nominative-accusative alignment in other parts (e.g., in the case marking of pronouns, or in

person agreement In linguistics, agreement or concord (abbreviated ) occurs when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates. It is an instance of inflection, and usually involves making the value of some grammatical category (such as gender ...

). This is known as split ergativity.

Ergative vs. accusative languages

An ergative language maintains a syntactic or morphological equivalence (such as the same

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

) for the object of a transitive verb and the single core argument of an intransitive verb, while treating the agent of a transitive verb differently. This contrasts with nominative–accusative languages such as

, where the single argument of an intransitive verb and the

of a transitive verb (both called the subject) are treated alike and kept distinct from the object of a transitive verb. (reference for figure:Friend, Some Syntactic and Morphological Features of Suleimaniye Kurdish, UCLA, 1985) These different arguments are usually symbolized as follows: * A = agent of transitive verb * O = object of transitive verb (also symbolized as P for "patient") * S = core argument of intransitive verb The relationship between ergative and accusative systems can be schematically represented as the following: ''See

for a more technical explanation and a comparison with nominative–accusative languages.'' Note that the word ''subject'', as it is typically defined in grammars of nominative-accusative languages, has a different application when referring to ergative–absolutive languages, or when discussing

in general. Ergative languages tend to be either verb-final or verb-initial; there are few, if any, ergative SVO-languages.

Realization of ergativity

Ergativity can be found in both morphological and syntactic behavior.

Morphological ergativity

If the language has morphological case, then the

verb argument In linguistics, an argument is an expression that helps complete the meaning of a predicate, the latter referring in this context to a main verb and its auxiliaries. In this regard, the '' complement'' is a closely related concept. Most predicates ...

s are marked thus: * The agent of a transitive verb (A) is marked as

ergative case In grammar, the ergative case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that identifies the noun as the agent of a transitive verb in ergative–absolutive languages. Characteristics In such languages, the ergative case is typically marked (most ...

, or as a similar case such as

oblique Oblique may refer to: * an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / ) *Oblique angle, in geometry *Oblique triangle, in geometry * Oblique lattice, in geometry * Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the b ...

. * The core argument of an intransitive verb (S) and the object of a transitive verb (O) are both marked with

absolutive case In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative� ...

. If there is no case marking, ergativity can be marked through other means, such as in verbal morphology. For instance, Abkhaz and most

Mayan languages The Mayan languagesIn linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and as ...

have no morphological ergative case, but they have a verbal agreement structure that is ergative. In languages with ergative–absolutive agreement systems, the absolutive form is usually the most

unmarked In linguistics and social sciences, markedness is the state of standing out as nontypical or divergent as opposed to regular or common. In a marked–unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one. The dominant defau ...

form of a word (exceptions include

Nias Nias ( id, Pulau Nias, Nias language: ''Tanö Niha'') (sometimes called Little Sumatra in English) is an island located off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago () of which the island is the centre, ...

and Tlapanec). The following examples from

demonstrate an ergative–absolutive case marking system: Here ''-Ø'' represents a zero morpheme, as the absolutive case is unmarked in Basque. The forms for the ergative are ''-k'' after a vowel, and ''-ek'' after a consonant. It is a further rule in Basque grammar that in most cases a noun phrase must be closed by a determiner. The default determiner (commonly called the

article Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: G ...

, which is suffixed to common nouns and usually translatable by "the" in English) is ''-a'' in the singular and ''-ak'' in the plural, the plural being marked only on the determiner and never the noun. For common nouns, this default determiner is fused with the ergative case marker. Thus one obtains the following forms for ''gizon'' ("man"): ''gizon-a'' (man-the.sing.abs), ''gizon-ak'' (man-the.pl.abs), ''gizon-ak'' (man-the.sing.erg), ''gizon-ek'' (man-the.pl.erg). Note that when fused with the article, the absolutive plural is

homophonous A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (pa ...

with the ergative singular. See

Basque grammar This article provides a grammar sketch of Basque grammar. Basque is the language of the Basque people of the Basque Country or Euskal Herria, which borders the Bay of Biscay in Western Europe. Noun phrases The Basque noun phrase is structured ...

for details. In contrast,

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

is a nominative–accusative language: In this language, the argument of the intransitive and agent of the transitive sentence are marked with the same

nominative case In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...

particle ''ga'', while the object of the transitive sentence is marked with the accusative case ''o''. If one sets: A = agent of a transitive verb; S = argument of an intransitive verb; O = object of a transitive verb, then we can contrast normal nominative–accusative English with a hypothetical ergative English: Accusative English: :He (A) found me (O). :He (S) traveled. (S form = A form) Hypothetical ergative English: :He (A) found me (O). :Him (S) traveled. (S form = O form) A number of languages have both ergative and accusative morphology. A typical example is a language that has nominative-accusative marking on verbs and ergative–absolutive case marking on nouns.

has an ergative alignment, but the agent is only marked with the ergative case in the

perfective The perfective aspect ( abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the i ...

aspect (also known as the "aorist

screeve Screeve is a term of grammatical description in traditional Georgian grammars that roughly corresponds to tense–aspect–mood marking in the Western grammatical tradition. It derives from the Georgian word ''mts’k’rivi'' (მწკრივ ...

"). Compare: : () "The man is eating an apple." : () "The man ate an apple." is the root of the word "man". In the first sentence (present continuous tense) the agent is in the nominative case ( ). In the second sentence, which shows ergative alignment, the root is marked with the ergative suffix . However, there are some intransitive verbs in Georgian that behave like transitive verbs, and therefore employ the ergative case in the past tense. Consider: : () "The man sneezed." Although the verb "sneeze" is clearly intransitive, it is conjugated like a transitive verb. In Georgian there are a few verbs like these, and there has not been a clear-cut explanation as to why these verbs have evolved this way. One explanation is that verbs such as "sneeze" used to have a direct object (the object being "nose" in the case of "sneeze") and over time lost these objects, yet kept their transitive behavior.

Differing Noun-Pronoun Alignment

In rare cases, such as the Australian Aboriginal language

Nhanda The Nhanda people, also spelt Nanda, Nhunda, Nhanta, and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people who live in the mid-west region of Western Australia around the mouth of the Murchison River. Language The traditional language of t ...

, different nominal elements may follow a different case-alignment template. In Nhanda, common nouns have ergative-absolutive alignment—like in most Australian languages—but most pronouns instead follow a nominative-accusative template. In Nhanda,

has a null suffix while

is marked with some

allomorph In linguistics, an allomorph is a variant phonetic form of a morpheme, or, a unit of meaning that varies in sound and spelling without changing the meaning. The term ''allomorph'' describes the realization of phonological variations for a specif ...

of the suffixes ''-nggu'' or ''-lu.'' See the common noun paradigm at play below: Intransitive Subject (ABS) Transitive Subject-Object (ERG-ABS) Compare the above examples with the case marking of pronouns in Nhanda below, wherein all subjects (regardless of verb transitivity) are marked (in this case with a null suffix) the same for case while transitive objects take the

suffix ''-nha''. Intransitive Pronoun Subject (NOM) Transitive Pronoun Subject-Object (NOM-ACC)

Syntactic ergativity

Ergativity may be manifested through syntax, such as saying "Arrived I" for "I arrived", in addition to morphology. Syntactic ergativity is quite rare, and while all languages that exhibit it also feature morphological ergativity, few morphologically ergative languages have ergative syntax. As with morphology, syntactic ergativity can be placed on a continuum, whereby certain syntactic operations may pattern accusatively and others ergatively. The degree of syntactic ergativity is then dependent on the number of syntactic operations that treat the subject like the object. Syntactic ergativity is also referred to as inter-clausal ergativity, as it typically appears in the relation of two clauses. Syntactic ergativity may appear in: *

Word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

(for example, the absolutive argument comes before the verb and the ergative argument comes after it) * Syntactic pivots *

Relative clause A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phraseRodney D. Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, ''A Student's Introduction to English Grammar'', CUP 2005, p. 183ff. and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the argument ...

s – determining which arguments are available for relativization *

Subordination Subordination may refer to *Subordination in a hierarchy (in military, society, etc.) ** Insubordination, disobedience *Subordination (linguistics) * Subordination (finance) * Subordination agreement, a legal document used to deprecate the claim ...

Switch reference In linguistics, switch-reference (SR) describes any clause-level morpheme that signals whether certain prominent arguments in 'adjacent' clauses are coreferential. In most cases, it marks whether the subject of the verb in one clause is corefe ...

Example

Example of syntactic ergativity in the " conjunction reduction" construction ( coordinated clauses) in Dyirbal in contrast with English conjunction reduction. (The subscript (i) indicates coreference.)

( SVO word order): # Father returned. # Father saw mother. # Mother saw father. # Father_(i) returned and father_(i) saw mother. # Father_(i) returned and _____(i) saw mother. # Father_(i) returned and mother saw father_(i). #* Father_(i) returned and mother saw _____(i). (ill-formed, because S and deleted O cannot be coreferential.) Dyirbal ( OSV word order): # Ŋuma banagan^yu. (''Father returned.'') # Yabu ŋumaŋgu buṛan. (lit. ''Mother father-''ŋgu'' saw'', i.e. ''Father saw mother.'') # Ŋuma yabuŋgu buṛan. (lit. ''Father mother-''ŋgu'' saw'', i.e. ''Mother saw father.'') # Ŋuma_(i) banagan^yu, yabu ŋumaŋgu_(i) buṛan. (lit. ''Father''_(i)'' returned, mother father-''ŋgu_(i)'' saw'', i.e. ''Father returned, father saw mother.'') #* Ŋuma_(i) banagan^yu, yabu _____(i) buṛan. (lit. *''Father''_(i)'' returned, mother ____''_(i)'' saw''; ill-formed, because S and deleted A cannot be coreferential.) # Ŋuma_(i) banagan^yu, ŋuma_(i) yabuŋgu buṛan. (lit. ''Father''_(i)'' returned, father''_(i)'' mother-''ŋgu'' saw'', i.e. ''Father returned, mother saw father.'') # Ŋuma_(i) banagan^yu, _____(i) yabuŋgu buṛan. (lit. ''Father''_(i)'' returned, ____''_(i)'' mother-''ŋgu'' saw'', i.e. ''Father returned, mother saw father.'') Crucially, the fifth sentence has an S/A pivot and thus is ill-formed in Dyirbal (syntactically ergative); on the other hand, the seventh sentence has an S/O pivot and thus is ill-formed in English (syntactically accusative).

Split ergativity

The term ''ergative–absolutive'' is considered unsatisfactory by some, since there are very few languages without any patterns that exhibit

. Instead they posit that one should only speak of ''ergative–absolutive systems'', which languages employ to different degrees. Many languages classified as ergative in fact show split ergativity, whereby syntactic and/or morphological ergative patterns are conditioned by the grammatical context, typically person or the tense/aspect of the verb.

is unusual in having an almost fully ergative system in case-marking and verbal

agreement Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus, a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of law ** Meeting o ...

, though it shows thoroughly nominative–accusative syntactic alignment. In Hindustani (

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

and

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' ergative case In grammar, the ergative case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that identifies the noun as the agent of a transitive verb in ergative–absolutive languages. Characteristics In such languages, the ergative case is typically marked (most ...

is marked on agents in the perfective aspect for transitive and

ditransitive verb In grammar, a ditransitive (or bitransitive) verb is a transitive verb whose contextual use corresponds to a subject (grammar), subject and two object (grammar), objects which refer to a Thematic relation, theme and a recipient. According to cert ...

s (also for

s when they are voliational), while in other situations agents appear in the

. In the Northern Kurdish language

Kurmanji Kurmanji ( ku, کورمانجی, lit=Kurdish, translit=Kurmancî, also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northern dialect of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern Sy ...

, the ergative case is marked on agents and verbs of transitive verbs in past tenses, for the events actually occurred in the past. Present, future and "future in the past" tenses show no ergative mark neither for agents nor the verbs. For example: :(1) Ez diçim. (I go) :(2) Ez wî dibînim. (I see him.) :(3) Ew diçe. (He goes) :(4) Ew min dibîne. (He sees me.) but: :(5) Ez çûm. (I went) :(6) Min ew dît. (I saw him.) :(7) Ew çû. (He went.) :(8) Wî ez dîtim. (He saw me.) In sentences (1) to (4), there is no ergativity (transitive and intransitive verbs alike). In sentences (6) and (8), the ergative case is marked on agents and verbs. In Dyirbal, pronouns are morphologically nominative–accusative when the agent is first or second person, but ergative when the agent is a third person.

Optional ergativity

Many languages with ergative marking display what is known as ''optional ergativity'', where the ergative marking is not always expressed in all situations. McGregor (2010) gives a range of contexts when we often see optional ergativity, and argues that the choice is often not truly ''optional'' but is affected by

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comp ...

and

pragmatics In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the in ...

. Note that unlike split ergativity, which occurs regularly but in limited locations, optional ergativity can occur in a range of environments, but may not be used in a way that appears regular or consistent. Optional ergativity may be motivated by: * The animacy of the subject, with more ''animate'' subjects more likely to be marked ergative * The

of the verb, with more ''active'' or ''transitive'' verbs more likely to be marked ergative * The

grammatical structure In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...

or ense-aspect-mood Languages from Australia, New Guinea and Tibet have been shown to have optional ergativity.

Distribution of ergative languages

Prototypical ergative languages are, for the most part, restricted to specific regions of the world:

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

(

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

, and some extinct languages),

the Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...

the Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

, the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the ...

, and Australia and parts of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

. Specific languages and language families include:

Americas

Chibchan languages The Chibchan languages (also Chibchan, Chibchano) make up a language family indigenous to the Isthmo-Colombian Area, which extends from eastern Honduras to northern Colombia and includes populations of these countries as well as Nicaragua, Costa ...

Chinookan languages The Chinookan languages were a small family of languages spoken in Oregon and Washington along the Columbia River by Chinook peoples. Although the last known native speaker of any Chinookan language died in 2012, the 2009-2013 American Community ...

(extinct) *

Coosan languages The Coosan (also Coos or Kusan) language family consists of two languages spoken along the southern Oregon coast. Both languages are now extinct. Classification * Hanis ''†'' * Miluk ''†'' ( Lower Coquille) Melville Jacobs (1939) says tha ...

(extinct) * Eskimo–Aleut languages *

Guaicuruan languages Guaicuruan (Guaykuruan, Waikurúan, Guaycuruano, Guaikurú, Guaicuru, Guaycuruana) is a language family spoken in northern Argentina, western Paraguay, and Brazil (Mato Grosso do Sul). The speakers of the languages are often collectively called ...

Macro-Jê languages Macro-Jê (also spelled Macro-Gê) is a medium-sized language stock in South America, mostly in Brazil but also in the Chiquitanía region in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, as well as (formerly) in small parts of Argentina and Paraguay. It is centered o ...

* Mixe–Zoque * Panoan languages *

Salish languages The Salishan (also Salish) languages are a family of languages of the Pacific Northwest in North America (the Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana). They are characterised by ag ...

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; tsi, Ts’msyan or Tsm'syen) are an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace and Prince Rupert, and Metlakatla, Alaska on Annette Island, the only r ...

Africa

Majang language The Majang language is spoken by the Majangir people of Ethiopia. Although it is a member of the Surmic language cluster, it is the most isolated one in the group (Fleming 1983). A language survey has shown that dialect variation from north ...

, a Nilo-Saharan language of Ethiopia * Päri, although recent studies imply a nominative-accusative system.

Asia

* Assamese *

Burushaski Burushaski (; ) is a language isolate spoken by Burusho people, who reside almost entirely in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, with a few hundred speakers in northern Jammu and Kashmir, India. In Pakistan, Burushaski is spoken by people ...

* Chukchi (endangered) * Hawu *

Sylheti Sylheti may refer to: * Sylhetis, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group in the Sylhet division and South Assam * Sylheti language, a language of the Sylheti region * Sylheti Nagri Sylheti Nagri or Sylheti Nagari ( syl, , ISO: , ), known in cla ...

* Yaghnobi

Australian

* Most Australian Aboriginal languages, such as Dyirbal Certain Australian Aboriginal languages (e.g.,

Wangkumara The Wanggumara, also spelt Wangkumara, Wongkumara, Wangkumarra, and other variants, are an Aboriginal people of the state of Queensland, Australia. Language Old Wankumara, spoken along the Bulloo River with the Kalali people, was a 'Karna–M ...

) possess an

intransitive case In grammar, the intransitive case ( abbreviated ), also denominated passive case or patient case, is a grammatical case used in some languages to mark the argument of an intransitive verb, but not used with transitive verbs. It is generally seen i ...

and an accusative case along with an

, and lack an

; such languages are called

tripartite language In linguistic typology, tripartite alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the main argument ('subject') of an intransitive verb, the agent argument ('subject') of a transitive verb, and the patient argument ('direct object') of ...

s or ergative–accusative languages.

Papua

Eastern Trans-Fly languages The Eastern Trans-Fly (or Oriomo Plateau) languages are a small independent family of Papuan languages spoken in the Oriomo Plateau The Oriomo Plateau is a plateau in Western Province, Papua New Guinea.Oriomo Plateau The Oriomo Plateau i ...

* various

Trans–New Guinea languages Trans–New Guinea (TNG) is an extensive family of Papuan languages spoken on the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands ‒ corresponding to the country Papua New Guinea as well as parts of Indonesia. Trans–New Guinea is the third-la ...

Europe

Caucasus and Near East

Hurrian The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Northern ...

(extinct) *

Urartian Urartian or Vannic is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language which was spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu (''Biaini'' or ''Biainili'' in Urartian), which was centered on the region around Lake Van and had its capital, Tushpa, ...

(extinct) * Sumerian (extinct) * South Caucasian:

, Laz *

Northeast Caucasian The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or ''Vainakh-Daghestani'', is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and in Northern Azerbaijan as well as ...

: Chechen, Lezgian, Tsez, Archi (

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...

) *

Northwest Caucasian The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes ''Pontic languages'' (from the historical region of Pontus, in contrast to ''Caspian languages'' for the Northeast Cauc ...

: Abkhaz, Circassian, Ubykh (extinct) *

: Gorani,

Zazaki Zaza or Zazaki (), is an Iranian language spoken primarily in eastern Turkey by the Zazas. The language is a part of the Zaza–Gorani language group of the northwestern group of the Iranian branch. The glossonym Zaza originated as a pejorativ ...

Sorani Central Kurdish (), also called Sorani (), is a Kurdish dialect or a language that is spoken in Iraq, mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the provinces of Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan in western Iran. Sorani is one of the two o ...

and

Several scholars have hypothesized that

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

was an ergative language, although this hypothesis is controversial.

Languages with limited ergativity

*In

( Indo-Iranian), ergative alignment occurs only when the verb is in the perfective aspect for

s (also for intransitive verbs but only when they are

volitional Volition may refer to: * Volition (psychology), the process of making and acting on decisions ** Coherent Extrapolated Volition, hypothetical choices and the actions collectively taken with more knowledge and ability * Volition (linguistics), a di ...

). *In

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...

, ergative alignment occurs only in the past tense. *In

, ergativity only occurs in the

. *The

Philippine languages The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (languag ...

(e.g., Tagalog) are sometimes considered ergative (Schachter 1976, 1977; Kroeger 1993); however, they have also been considered to have their own unique morphosyntactic alignment. See symmetrical voice. *In the

Neo-Aramaic languages The Neo-Aramaic or Modern Aramaic languages are varieties of Aramaic that evolved during the late medieval and early modern periods, and continue to the present day as vernacular (spoken) languages of modern Aramaic-speaking communities. Within ...

(

Assyrian Neo-Aramaic Suret ( syr, ܣܘܪܝܬ) ( �su:rɪtʰor �su:rɪθ, also known as Assyrian or Chaldean, refers to the varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) spoken by ethnic Assyrians, including those identifying as religious groups rather than eth ...

Lishana Deni The Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho is a dialect of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic originally spoken by Jews in Zakho, Iraq. Following the exodus of Jews from the Muslim lands, most speakers now live in Israel, principally Jerusalem Je ...

, Koy Sanjaq Syriac language and others) split ergativity formed in the

aspect only, whereas the

imperfective The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a g ...

aspect is nominative-accusative. Some dialects would only mark

unaccusative In linguistics, an unaccusative verb is an intransitive verb whose grammatical subject is not a semantics, semantic agent (grammar), agent. In other words, the subject does not actively initiate, or is not actively responsible for, the action expres ...

subjects as ergative. Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, in particular, has an ergative type of construction of the perfective past verbal base, where foregone actions are verbalized by a passive construction with the

patient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other hea ...

being conferred as the

grammatical subject The subject in a simple English sentence such as ''John runs'', ''John is a teacher'', or ''John drives a car'', is the person or thing about whom the statement is made, in this case ''John''. Traditionally the subject is the word or phrase whi ...

rather than by an active construction, e.g. ''baxta qtile'' ("the woman was killed by him"). The ergative type of inflection with an agentive phrase has been extended by analogy to intransitive verbs, e.g. ''qim-le'' ("he has risen"). To note,

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

has historically been a nominative-accusative language.

Sign languages

Sign languages (for example,

Nepali Sign Language Nepalese Sign Language or Nepali Sign Language is the main sign language of Nepal. It is a partially Language standardization, standardized language based informally on the variety used in Kathmandu, with some input from varieties from Pokhara an ...

) should also generally be considered ergative in the patterning of

actant In narrative theory, actant is a term from the actantial model of semiotic analysis of narratives. The term also has uses in linguistics, sociology, computer programming theory, and astrology. In narratology Algirdas Julien Greimas (1917–1992), ...

incorporation in verbs. In

sign language Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...

s that have been studied,

classifier handshape In sign languages, the term classifier construction (also known as classifier predicates) refers to a morphological system that can express events and states. They use handshape classifiers to represent movement, location, and shape. Classifie ...

s are incorporated into verbs, indicating the subject of

s when incorporated, and the

s. (If we follow the "

semantic phonology Semantic phonology is a model for sign language "phonology" proposed by William Stokoe(1991) It represents a notable departure from the models of the preceding 30 years, which were all based in large part on an earlier model originally called "chero ...

" model proposed by

William Stokoe William C. Stokoe Jr. ( ; July 21, 1919 – April 4, 2000) was an American linguist and a long-time professor at Gallaudet University. His research on American Sign Language (ASL) revolutionized the understanding of ASL in the United States and s ...

(1991)William Stokoe (1991) Semantic Phonology. Sign Language Studies, 71 ,107–114. this ergative-absolutive patterning also works at the level of the lexicon: thus in

the sign for TEA has the motion for the verb DRINK with a

manual alphabet Fingerspelling (or dactylology) is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets (also known as finger alphabets or hand alphabets) have often been used in deaf ...

handshape च /ca/ (standing for the first letter of the Nepali word TEA चिया /chiya:/) being incorporated as the

Approximations of ergativity in English

English has derivational morphology that parallels ergativity in that it operates on intransitive verbs and objects of transitive verbs. With certain intransitive verbs, adding the suffix "-ee" to the verb produces a label for the person performing the action: :"John has retired" → "John is a retiree" :"John has escaped" → "John is an escapee" However, with a transitive verb, adding "-ee" does not produce a label for the person doing the action. Instead, it gives us a label for the person to whom the action is done: :"Susie employs Mike" → "Mike is an employee" :"Mike has appointed Susie" → "Susie is an appointee" Etymologically, the sense in which "-ee" denotes the object of a transitive verb is the original one, arising from French

past participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...

s in "-é". This is still the prevalent sense in

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

: the intransitive uses are all 19th-century American

coinage Coinage may refer to: * Coins, standardized as currency * Neologism, coinage of a new word * '' COINage'', numismatics magazine * Tin coinage, a tax on refined tin * Protologism ''Protologism'' is a term coined in 2003 by the American literary ...

s and all except "escapee" are still marked as "chiefly U.S." by the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...

''. English also has a number of so-called

ergative verb In general linguistics, a labile verb (or ergative verb) is a verb that undergoes causative alternation; it can be used both transitively and intransitively, with the requirement that the direct object of its transitive use corresponds to the ...

s, where the object of the verb when transitive is equivalent to the subject of the verb when intransitive. When English nominalizes a clause, the underlying subject of an intransitive verb and the underlying object of a transitive verb are both marked with the possessive case or with the preposition "of" (the choice depends on the type and length of the noun: pronouns and short nouns are typically marked with the possessive, while long and complex NPs are marked with "of"). The underlying subject of a transitive is marked differently (typically with "by" as in a passive construction): :"(a dentist) extracts a tooth" → "the extraction of a tooth (by a dentist)" :"(I/The editor) revised the essay" → "(my/the editor's) revision of the essay" :"(I was surprised that) the water boiled" → "(I was surprised at) the boiling of the water" :"I departed on time (so I could catch the plane)" → "My timely departure (allowed me to catch the plane)"

References

Bibliography

*Aldridge, Edith. (2008). Generative Approaches to Ergativity. ''Language and Linguistics Compass, 2'', 966–995. *Aldridge, Edith. (2008). Minimalist analysis of ergativity. ''Sophia Linguistica, 55'', 123–142. *Aldridge, Edith. (2016). Ergativity from subjunctive in Austronesian languages. ''Language and Linguistics, 17''(1), 27–62. * Anderson, Stephen. (1976). On the notion of subject in ergative languages. In C. Li. (Ed.), ''Subject and topic'' (pp. 1–24). New York: Academic Press. . * Anderson, Stephen R. (1985). Inflectional morphology. In T. Shopen (Ed.), ''Language typology and syntactic description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon'' (Vol. 3, pp. 150–201). Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press. . * Comrie, Bernard. (1978)
Ergativity
In W. P. Lehmann (Ed.), ''Syntactic typology: Studies in the phenomenology of language'' (pp. 329–394). Austin: University of Texas Press. . * Coon, Jessica, Diane Massam and Lisa deMena Travis. (Eds.). (2017). ''The Oxford handbook of ergativity''. Oxford University Press. * Comrie, Bernard (1989

981 Year 981 ( CMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events Births * Abu'l-Qasim al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Maghribi, Arab statesman (d. 1027) * Giovanni Orseolo, Venetian ...

. ''Language Universals and Linguistic Typology'', 2nd ed. University of Chicago Press. * Dixon, R. M. W. (1979). Ergativity. ''Language'', ''55'' (1), 59-138. (Revised as Dixon 1994). * Dixon, R. M. W. (Ed.) (1987). ''Studies in ergativity''. Amsterdam: North-Holland. . * Dixon, R. M. W. (1994). ''Ergativity''. Cambridge University Press. . * Foley, William; & Van Valin, Robert. (1984). ''Functional syntax and universal grammar''. Cambridge University Press. . * Iliev, Ivan G. (2007
On the Nature of Grammatical Case ... (Case and Vocativeness)
* Kroeger, Paul. (1993). ''Phrase structure and grammatical relations in Tagalog''. Stanford: CSLI. . * Legate, Julie Anne. (2008). Morphological and Abstract Case. ''Linguistic Inquiry'' 39.1: 55-101. * Mallinson, Graham; & Blake, Barry J. (1981). Agent and patient marking. ''Language typology: Cross-linguistic studies in syntax'' (Chap. 2, pp. 39–120). North-Holland linguistic series. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company. * McGregor, William B. (2010). Optional ergative case marking systems in a typological-semiotic perspective. ''Lingua'' 120: 1610–1636. *Paul, Ileana & Travis, Lisa. (2006). Ergativity in Austronesian languages: What it can do, what it can't, but not why. In A. Johns, D. Massam, & J. Ndayiragije (Eds.), ''Ergativity: Emerging Issues'' (pp. 315–335). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. * Plank, Frans. (Ed.). (1979). ''Ergativity: Towards a theory of grammatical relations''. London: Academic Press. * Rude, Noel. (1983). Ergativity and the active-stative typology in Loma. ''Studies in African Linguistics'' 14 (3): 265–283. * Schachter, Paul. (1976). The subject in Philippine languages: Actor, topic, actor-topic, or none of the above. In C. Li. (Ed.), ''Subject and topic'' (pp. 491–518). New York: Academic Press. * Schachter, Paul. (1977). Reference-related and role-related properties of subjects. In P. Cole & J. Sadock (Eds.), ''Syntax and semantics: Grammatical relations'' (Vol. 8, pp. 279–306). New York: Academic Press. . * Silverstein, Michael. (1976). Hierarchy of Features and Ergativity. In R.M.W. Dixon (ed.) ''Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages'' (pp. 112–171). New Jersey: Humanities Press. . Reprinted in Pieter Muysken and

Henk van Riemsdijk Henk van Riemsdijk (born 27 April 1948 in The Hague, The Netherlands) is a Dutch linguist and professor emeritus at Tilburg University. Career Van Riemsdijk studied linguistics at the Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis and at the Universi ...

(eds.), ''Features and Projections'' (pp. 163–232). Dordrecht: Foris. . * Verbeke, Saartje. 2013. ''Alignment and ergativity in new

.'' Berlin: de Gruyter. * Vydrin, Valentin. (2011). Ergative/Absolutive and Active/Stative alignment in West Africa:The case of Southwestern Mande. ''Studies in Language'' 35 (2): 409–443.

External links

"A quick tutorial on ergativity, by way of the Squid-headed one"
at Recycled Knowledge (blog), by John Cowan, 2005-05-05. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ergative-absolutive language Language Linguistic typology