Ergative–absolutive alignment

In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the subject of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the subject of a transitive verb.^[1] All known ergative languages show ergativity in their morphology, and a small portion also show ergativity in their syntax.^[2]: 172

The ergative–absolutive alignment is in contrast to nominative–accusative alignment, which is observed in English, where the single argument of an intransitive verb behaves grammatically like the agent (subject) of a transitive verb but different from the object of a transitive verb. In ergative–absolutive languages with grammatical case, the case for the single argument of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb is called the absolutive, and the case used for the agent of a transitive verb is called the ergative.

By one measure, 17% the world's languages use an ergative alignment in the marking of noun phrases.^[3] Examples of ergative–absolutive languages include Basque, Georgian, Mayan, Tibetan, Sumerian, and certain Indo-European languages such as Pashto, the Kurdish languages and many others.

An ergative language maintains a syntactic or morphological equivalence (such as the same word order or grammatical case) 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. Such languages are said to operate with S/O syntactic pivot.

This contrasts with nominative–accusative languages such as English, where the single argument of an intransitive verb and the agent of a transitive verb (both called the subject) are treated alike and kept distinct from the object of a transitive verb. Such languages are said to operate with S/A (syntactic) pivot.

(reference for figure:^[4])

These different arguments are usually symbolized as follows:

• A = agent of transitive verb ("The dog sees the cat")
• O = object of transitive verb, also symbolized as P for "patient" ("The cat sees the dog")
• S = core argument (i.e. subject) of intransitive verb ("The dog sees")

The relationship between ergative and accusative systems can be schematically represented as the following:

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

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 morphosyntactic alignment in general.

Ergative languages tend to be either verb-final or verb-initial; there are few, if any, ergative SVO languages.^[5]

Latin and Dyirbal are both languages which use case markings. Latin, however, has a nominative–accusative system, while Dyirbal has an ergative–absolutive one.^{[2]: 9–10} By comparing the pattern of case markings in these languages, the concept of ergativity can be made clear.

Because nominative–accusative systems align the subject of an intransitive verb with the subject of a transitive verb, the subjects in Latin are marked with the nominative case marker "-us" for both transitive and intransitive verbs. Similarly, the object is always marked with the accusative marker "-um".

Compare this to Dyirbal, which uses an ergative–absolutive system. In Dyirbal, a noun has no affixes when it is the sole subject of an intransitive verb as well as when it is the object of a transitive verb.^{[2]: 9–10} Only transitive subjects have a case marking "-ŋgu". The fact that the case marking for the subject of an intransitive verb differs from the marking on subjects of a transitive verb is the key difference of ergative–absolutive languages.

With an intransitive verb, the subject does not get an affix in Dyirbal. While with a transitive verb, it is the object that does not get an affix.

Ergativity can be found in both morphological and syntactic behavior.^[6]

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

• The agent of a transitive verb (A) is marked as ergative case, or as a similar case such as oblique.
• The core argument of an intransitive verb (S) and the object of a transitive verb (O) are both marked with absolutive case.^[4]

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 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 form of a word (exceptions include Nias and Tlapanec).^[7]

The following examples from Basque demonstrate an ergative–absolutive case marking system:

Here -Ø represents a zero morpheme, as the absolutive case is unmarked in Basque with proper nouns (i.e., Martin, Diego, Berlin...). 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, 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). When fused with the article, the absolutive plural is homophonous with the ergative singular. See Basque grammar for details.^[8]

English pronouns change depending on if they are used in the nominative or accusative cases. The third person singular pronoun, "he/she" is used in the nominative case, while "him/her" is used in the accusative. As these cases do not exist in ergative languages, they will be mapped to cases in the ergative–absolutive system for this example. "He/she" is represented here as the ergative, and "him/her" as the absolutive. Note how the key difference between these systems is that "him smiles" is grammatical in the hypothetical ergative English because it is aligned with how objects are used in transitive sentences.

Georgian has an ergative alignment, but the agent is only marked with the ergative case in the perfective aspect (also known as the "aorist screeve"). Thus exhibiting a form of split ergativity. Compare:

K'aci vašls č'ams. (კაცი ვაშლს ჭამს) "The man is eating an apple."

K'acma vašli č'ama. (კაცმა ვაშლი ჭამა) "The man ate an apple."

K'ac- is the root of the word "man". In the first sentence (present continuous tense) the agent is in the nominative case (k'aci ). In the second sentence, which shows ergative alignment, the root is marked with the ergative suffix -ma.

However, there are some intransitive verbs in Georgian that behave like transitive verbs, and therefore employ the ergative case in the past tense. Consider:

K'acma daacemina. (კაცმა დააცემინა) "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.

In rare cases, such as the Australian Aboriginal language Nhanda, 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, the absolutive case has a null suffix while ergative case is marked with some allomorph of the suffixes -nggu or -lu. See the common noun paradigm at play below:^[9]

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 accusative suffix -nha.

Intransitive Pronoun Subject (NOM)

Transitive Pronoun Subject-Object (NOM-ACC)

Ergativity may be manifested through syntax in addition to morphology. While all known ergative languages show ergativity in their morphology, only a small portion also show ergativity in their syntax.^[2]: 172 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 (for example, the absolutive argument comes before the verb and the ergative argument comes after it)
• Syntactic pivots
• Relative clauses – determining which arguments are available for relativization
• Subordination
• Switch reference

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

English (SVO word order):

1. Father returned.
2. Father saw mother.
3. Mother saw father.
4. Father_(i) returned and father_(i) saw mother.
5. Father_(i) returned and _____(i) saw mother.
6. Father_(i) returned and mother saw father_(i).
7. * Father_(i) returned and mother saw _____(i). (ill-formed, because S and deleted O cannot be coreferential.)

Dyirbal (OSV word order):

1. Ŋuma banagan^yu. (Father returned.)
2. Yabu ŋumaŋgu buṛan. (lit. Mother father-ŋgu saw, i.e. Father saw mother.)
3. Ŋuma yabuŋgu buṛan. (lit. Father mother-ŋgu saw, i.e. Mother saw father.)
4. Ŋuma_(i) banagan^yu, yabu ŋumaŋgu_(i) buṛan. (lit. Father_(i) returned, mother father-ŋgu_(i) saw, i.e. Father returned, father saw mother.)
5. * Ŋuma_(i) banagan^yu, yabu _____(i) buṛan. (lit. *Father_(i) returned, mother _____(i) saw; ill-formed, because S and deleted A cannot be coreferential.)
6. Ŋuma_(i) banagan^yu, ŋuma_(i) yabuŋgu buṛan. (lit. Father_(i) returned, father_(i) mother-ŋgu saw, i.e. Father returned, mother saw father.)
7. 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).

Few ergative languages are purely ergative. Many ergative systems have parts of their grammar which do not maintain an ergative pattern, a phenomenon known as split ergativity. Some linguists have claimed that all ergative languages have split ergativity.^[10] The two main areas of grammar that often exhibit a split in ergativity are grammatical person and grammatical aspect. In both, cross-linguistic patterns have been observed which make the split of ergativity more predicable.

With grammatical person, a directional hierarchy has been observed cross-linguistically which constricts which grammatical persons may exhibit ergativity in the same language.^[11] In languages following this pattern of split ergativity, there will be a particular point on the hierarchy in which everything to the left will exhibit ergativity, and everything to the right will not. For example, Dyirbal has split ergativity on grammatical person and divides the hierarchy at the point of 1st/2nd person pronouns. 1st/2nd person pronouns use an accusative pattern, and everything to the left of it on the spectrum follows an ergative pattern.

The same principle has been observed with grammatical aspect. The directionality hierarchy is as follows:

In Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), the ergative case is marked on agents in the perfective aspect for transitive and ditransitive verbs (also for intransitive verbs when they are volitional),^[13] while in other situations agents appear in the nominative case.

In the Northern Kurdish language Kurmanji, 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.

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 and pragmatics. 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 semantics of the verb, with more active or transitive verbs more likely to be marked ergative
• The grammatical structure or [tense-aspect-mood]

Languages from Australia, New Guinea and Tibet have been shown to have optional ergativity.^[14]

A World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) sample of 190 languages found 32 (17%) of languages use an ergative alignment in the marking of noun phrases.^[3] Prototypical ergative languages are, for the most part, restricted to specific regions of the world: Mesopotamia (Kurdish, and some extinct languages), the Caucasus, the Americas, the Tibetan Plateau, and Australia and parts of New Guinea.

Specific languages and language families include:

• Most Australian Aboriginal languages, such as Dyirbal

Certain Australian Aboriginal languages (e.g., Wangkumara) possess an intransitive case and an accusative case along with an ergative case, and lack an absolutive case; such languages are called tripartite languages or ergative–accusative languages.

• Basque

Several scholars have hypothesized that Proto-Indo-European was an ergative language, although this hypothesis is controversial.^[33]

• In Hindi (Indo-Aryan), ergative alignment occurs only when the verb is in the perfective aspect for transitive verbs (also for intransitive verbs but only when they are volitional).
• In Pashto, ergative alignment occurs only in the past tense.
• In Georgian, ergativity only occurs in the perfective.
• The Philippine languages (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, which are generally classified into four groups, only Northeastern (NENA) and Ṭuroyo groups exhibit split ergativity, which is formed in the perfective aspect only, whereas the imperfective aspect is nominative–accusative. Some dialects would only mark unaccusative 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 being conferred as the grammatical subject 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").^[34] Aramaic has historically been a nominative–accusative language.^[35]

Sign languages (for example, Nepali Sign Language) should also generally be considered ergative in the patterning of actant incorporation in verbs.^[36] In sign languages that have been studied, classifier handshapes are incorporated into verbs, indicating the subject of intransitive verbs when incorporated, and the object of transitive verbs. (If we follow the "semantic phonology" model proposed by William Stokoe (1991)^[37] this ergative–absolutive patterning also works at the level of the lexicon: thus in Nepali Sign Language the sign for TEA has the motion for the verb DRINK with a manual alphabet handshape च /ca/ (standing for the first letter of the Nepali word TEA चिया /chiya:/) being incorporated as the object.)

English a number of so-called ergative verbs, 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 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)"

• Absolutive case
• Active-stative language
• Ergative case
• Ergative verb
• Morphosyntactic alignment
• Split ergativity
• Symmetrical voice (aka Austronesian alignment)
• Transitivity (grammar)
• Unaccusative verb
• Unergative verb

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