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Ergative–absolutive alignment

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Linguistic typology
Morphological
Morphosyntactic
Word order
Lexicon

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

Ergative vs. accusative languages

The distinguishing feature of an ergative language is that it maintains an equivalence between the object of a transitive verb and the subject of an intransitive verb, while treating the agent of a transitive verb differently. This contrasts with nominative-accusative languages (such as English), where the subject of transitive and intransitive verbs are treated like each other but distinctly from the object of a transitive verb.

Ergative alignment
Accusative alignment


These different arguments are usually symbolized as follows:

  • O = object of transitive verb (also symbolized as P for ‘patient’)
  • S = subject of intransitive verb
  • A = agent of transitive verb

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

  Ergative-absolutive Nominative-accusative
O same different
S same same
A different same

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

Note that subject as used here refers only to the sole obligatory argument of an intransitive verb. Subject as it is typically defined in grammars of nominative-accusative languages — combining intransitive subject and transitive agent roles — is incorrect when referring to ergative-absolutive languages, or when discussing morphosyntactic alignment in general.

Realization of ergativity

Ergativity can be found in both morphological and syntactic behavior.

Morphological ergativity

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

  • The agent of a transitive verb (A) is marked with ergative case.
  • The subject of an intransitive verb (S) and the object of a transitive verb (O) are both marked with absolutive case.

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

Ergative Language
Sentence: Gizona etorri da.      Gizonak mutila ikusi du.
Word: gizon-a etorri da      gizon-ak mutil-a ikusi du
Gloss: man-ABS has arrived      man-ERG boy-ABS saw
Function: S VERBintrans      A O VERBtrans
Translation: ‘The man has arrived.’      ‘The man saw the boy.’

In Basque, gizona is "the man" and mutil is "boy". Gizon has a different case marking depending on whether it is the argument of a transitive or intransitive verb. The first form is in the absolutive case, marked here by a (-a) suffix and the second form is in the ergative case, marked by a -ak suffix. The subject of the intransitive sentence and the object of the transitive sentence both have the same absolutive case, while ergative case appears only on the transitive agent.

In contrast, Japanese, a nominative-accusative language, marks nouns with a different case marking system:

Accusative Language
Sentence: Otoko ga tsuita.      Otoko ga kodomo o mita.
Words: otoko ga tsuita      otoko ga kodomo o mita
Gloss: man NOM arrived      man NOM child ACC saw
Function: S VERBintrans      A O VERBtrans
Translation: ‘The man arrived.’      ‘The man saw the child.’

In this language, otoko, subject of the intransitive and agent of the transitive sentence is marked with the same nominative case ga. However, kodomo, the object of the transitive sentence is marked with the accusative case o.

To help understanding, we can simulate English as being an ergative language; Declension, as an example for pronouns, is due to the function of such pronoun in a sentence;

So, let’s remember: A = agent of a transitive verb ; S = subject of an intransitive verb; O = object of a transitive verb;

Thus, we have:


Accusative English (as it is)

I (S) have traveled.

I (A) have invited her (O) to go with me.


Ergative English (if it were so)

Me (S) have traveled.

I (A) have invited her (O) to go with me

In this last case (ergative) the declension for S and O is the same (Acc)


If there’s no case marking, ergativity can be marked through other means, such as in verbal morphology. For instance, Abkhaz has no morphological ergative case, but its verbal agreement structure is ergative. In languages with ergative-absolutive systems, the absolutive form is usually the most unmarked form of a word.

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.

Georgian also has an ergative alignment, but the agent is only marked with the ergative case in the past tense (also known as the "aorist screeve"). Compare:

Katsi vashls chams. (კაცი ვაშლს ჩამს) "The man is eating an apple."
Katsma vashli chama. (კაცმა ვაშლი ჩამა) "The man ate an apple."

Kats- is the root of the word "man". In the first sentence (present continuous tense) the agent is in the nominative case (katsi). 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:

Katsma daatsemina. (კაცმა დააცემინა) "The man sneezed."

Although the verb sneeze is clearly intransitive, it is conjugated like any other transitive verbs. 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" did use 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.

Syntactic ergativity

Ergativity may be manifested through syntax 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 while other 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:

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.)

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 returned and ____(i) saw mother.
  6. Father(i) returned and mother saw father(i).
  7. *Father returned and mother saw ____(i). (Ill-formed, because S and deleted O cannot be coreferential.)

Dyirbal (OSV word order):

  1. Ŋuma banaganyu. (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) banaganyu, yabu ŋumaŋgu(i) buṛan. (lit. Father(i) returned, mother father-ŋgu(i) saw, i.e. Father returned, father saw mother.)
  5. *Ŋuma(i) banaganyu, yabu ____(i) buṛan. (lit. *Father(i) returned, mother ____(i) saw; ill-formed, because S and deleted A cannot be coreferential.)
  6. Ŋuma(i) banaganyu, ŋuma(i) yabuŋgu buṛan. (lit. Father(i) returned, father(i) mother-ŋgu saw, i.e. Father returned, mother saw father.)
  7. Ŋuma(i) banaganyu, ____(i) yabuŋgu buṛan. (lit. Father(i) returned, ____(i) mother-ŋgu saw, i.e. Father returned, mother saw father.)
Father returned.
father returned
S VERBintrans
Father returned, and father saw mother.
father returned and father saw mother
S VERBintrans CONJ A VERBtrans O
Father returned and saw mother.
father returned and ____ saw mother
S VERBintrans CONJ A VERBtrans O
Ŋuma banaganyu.
ŋuma-∅ banaganyu
father-ABS returned
S VERBintrans
"Father returned."
Yabu ŋumaŋgu buṛan.
yabu-∅ ŋuma-ŋgu buṛan
mother-ABS father-ERG saw
O A VERBtrans
"Father saw mother."
Ŋuma yabuŋgu buṛan.
ŋuma-∅ yabu-ŋgu buṛan
father-ABS mother-ERG saw
O A VERBtrans
"Mother saw father."
Ŋuma banaganyu, ŋuma yabuŋgu buṛan.
ŋuma-∅ banaganyu ŋuma-∅ yabu-ŋgu buṛan
father-ABS returned father-ABS mother-ERG saw
S VERBintrans O A VERBtrans
"Father returned and mother saw father."
Ŋuma banaganyu, yabuŋgu buṛan.
ŋuma-∅ banaganyu ____ yabu-ŋgu buṛan
father-ABS returned (deleted) mother-ERG saw
S VERBintrans O A VERBtrans
"Father returned and was seen by mother."

Split ergativity

Main article: Split ergativity

The term ergative-absolutive is considered unsatisfactory by some, 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.

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. Basque is unusual in having an almost fully ergative system.

In Urdu and Hindi, ergative case is marked on agents in the perfective aspect for transitive and ditransitive verbs, while in other situations agents appear in the nominative case.

laṛkā kitāb kharīdtā hai
boy-NOMINATIVE-MASCULINE book-NOMINATIVE-FEMININE buy-IMPERFECT-MASCULINE be-PRESENT ¹
"The boy buys a book."
laṛke ne kitāb kharīdī
boy-ERGATIVE-MASCULINE book-NOMINATIVE-FEMININE buy-PERFECT-FEMININE ¹
"The boy bought a book."
(¹) The grammatical breakup has been simplified to show the features relevant to the example.

In Dyirbal, pronouns are morphologically nominative-accusative when the agent is first or second person, but ergative when the agent is a third person.

Distribution of ergative languages

Prototypical ergative languages are, for the most part, restricted to specific regions of world: the Caucasus, parts of North America and Mesoamerica, and Australia.

Some specific languages are the following:

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

Many other languages have more limited ergativity, such as Pashto and Hindi (Indo-Iranian), where ergative behavior occurs only in the perfective, and Georgian, where ergativity only occurs in the aorist.

Traces of ergativity in English

English does show a trace of something that could be regarded as ergativity. With an intransitive verb, 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."
"John is standing." → "John is a standee."

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:

"Mike employs Susie." → "Susie is an employee."
"Mike has inducted Susie." → "Susie is an inductee."
"Mike has appointed Susie" → "Susie is an appointee."

The differing effect of the "-ee" suffix, depending on the transitivity of the verb, can be considered ergativity. (Etymologically, the sense in which "-ee" denotes the object of a transitive verb is the original one, arising from French past participles in "-é". This would still be considered the prevalent sense in UK English: the intransitive uses are all 19th century American coinages and all except "escapee" are still marked as "chiefly U.S." by the Oxford English Dictionary.)

English also has a number of so-called ergative verbs, which allow the object of a transitive clause to become the subject of an intransitive clause.

Philippine languages as ergative

Bibliography

  • 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.
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  • Dixon, R. M. W. (Ed.) (1987). Studies in ergativity. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
  • Dixon, R. M. W. (1994). Ergativity. Cambridge University Press.
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  • Kroeger, Paul. (1993). Phrase structure and grammatical relations in Tagalog. Stanford: CSLI.
  • 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.
  • Plank, Frans. (Ed.). (1979). Ergativity: Towards a theory of grammatical relations. London: Academic Press.
  • 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 (eds.), Features and Projections (pp. 163-232). Dordrecht: Foris.

See also

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