Tripartite alignment

A tripartite language, also called an ergative–accusative language, is one that treats the subject of an intransitive verb, the subject of a transitive verb, and the object of a transitive verb each in different ways. If the language has morphological case, the arguments are marked in this way:

• the agent of a transitive verb takes the ergative case
• the object of a transitive verb takes the accusative case
• the argument of an intransitive verb takes the intransitive case (AKA absolutive case)

Examples

In Nez Percé, the ergative-case suffix is -nim, the accusative suffix is -ne, and intransitive arguments take no suffix.

The Ainu language of northern Japan also shows tripartite marking in its proniminal prefixes, with the first person 'Ku=' being the ergative form, '=an' being the absolutive form and '=en=' being the accusative form. Ainu also shows the passive voice formation typical of nominative-accusative languages and the antipassive of ergative-absolutive languages. Like Nez Percé, the use of both the passive and antipassive is a trait of a tripartite language.

Tripartite languages are rare. Besides native American Nez Perce, they include the Vakh dialects of the Khanty language, Wangkumara and, in its singular pronouns, Kalaw Lagaw Ya, both Australian languages. Several constructed languages, especially engineered languages, use a tripartite case system or tripartite adposition system, notably Na'vi language.

See also

• Split ergativity

References

• Nez Perce Verb Morphology