Ergative-absolutive language

An ergative-absolutive language (or just ergative language) is one that marks the subject of transitive verbs distinctly from the subject of intransitive verbs and the object of transitive verbs.

Related Topics:
Language - Subject - Transitive verb - Intransitive verb

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If the language has morphological case, then the verb arguments are marked thus:

Related Topics:
Morphological - Case - Verb argument

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• The subject of a transitive verb is marked with a case conventionally known as "ergative".
• The subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb are both marked with a case called "absolutive".

If there's no case marking, the language can resort to word order (for example, the absolutive argument comes before the verb and the ergative argument comes after it). For instance, Abkhaz has no morphological ergative case, but its verbal agreement structure is ergative.

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In languages with ergative-absolutive systems, the absolutive form is usually the most unmarked form of a word, and the form that is used as the lemma.

Related Topics:
Unmarked - Lemma

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The term ergative-absolutive language is considered by some unsatisfactory, since there are very few languages without any patterns that exhibit nominative-accusative alignment. Instead, they posit, that one should only speak of ergative-absolutive systems, which languages employ to different degrees.

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See morphosyntactic alignment for a more technical explanation and a comparison with nominative-accusative languages.

Related Topics:
Morphosyntactic alignment - Nominative-accusative language

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Ergative-absolutive language: Examples ►