In such languages, the ergative case is typically marked ( most salient ), while the absolutive case is unmarked.

New work in case theory has vigorously supported the idea that the ergative case identifies the agent ( the intentful performer of an action ) of a verb ( Woolford 2004 ).

In Kalaallisut ( Greenlandic ) for example, the ergative case is used to mark subjects of transitive verbs and possessors of nouns.

Nez Perce has a three-way nominal case system with both ergative (- nim ) and accusative (- ne ) plus an absolute ( unmarked ) case for intransitive subjects: hipáayna qíiwn ‘ the old man arrived ’; hipáayna wewúkiye ‘ the elk arrived ’; wewúkiyene péexne qíiwnim ‘ the old man saw an elk ’.

Sahaptin has an ergative noun case ( with suffix-nɨm ) that is limited to transitive constructions only when the direct object is 1st or 2nd person: iwapáatayaaš łmámanɨm ‘ the old woman helped me ’; paanáy iwapáataya łmáma ‘ the old woman helped him / her ’ ( direct ); páwapaataya łmámayin ‘ the old woman helped him / her ’ ( inverse ).

Other languages that use the ergative case are Georgian, Chechen, and other Caucasian languages, Mayan languages, Mixe – Zoque languages, Wagiman and other Australian Aboriginal languages as well as Basque, Burushaski, Hindi, Yaghnobi and Tibetan.

The ergative case is also a feature of some constructed languages such as Na ' vi and Ithkuil.

In ergative – absolutive languages, the absolutive is the case used to mark both the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb, in addition to being used for the citation form of a noun.

It contrasts with the marked ergative case, which marks the subject of a transitive verb.

In tripartite languages, both the agent and object of a transitive clause have case forms, ergative and accusative, whereas the agent of an intransitive clause is the unmarked citation form.

But in an ergative – absolutive language like Dyirbal, " I " in the transitive I hug him would take the ergative case, but the " I " in I was hugged would take the absolutive, and so by analogy the antipassive construction more closely resembles * was hugged me.

Thus in this example, the ergative is promoted to the absolutive, and the agent ( i. e. him ), which was formerly marked by the absolutive, is deleted to form the antipassive voice ( or is marked in a different way, in the same way that in the English passive voice can still be specified as the agent of the action using by him in I was hugged by him — for example, Dyirbal puts the agent in the dative case, and Basque retains the agent in the absolutive ).

In Sumerian the ergative case is marked by the suffix-e and the absolutive case ( as in most ergative languages ) by no suffix at all ( the so-called " zero suffix ").

The case markers are /- Ø / ( absolutive ), /- e / ( ergative ), /- e / ( allative = " to "), /- ak / ( genitive ), /- gin / ( equative = " as, like "), /- r ( a )/ ( dative

The label is often used for ergative languages which do not have subjects, but have an agent – verb – object order.

In languages with ergative – absolutive alignment, the passive voice ( where the object of a transitive verb becomes the subject of an intransitive verb ) does not make sense, because the noun associated with the intransitive verb is marked as the object, not as the subject.

In some ambitransitive verbs, called ergative verbs, the alignment of the syntactic arguments to the semantic roles is exchanged.

If the three arguments of a typical ditransitive verb are labeled D ( for Donor ; the subject of a verb like " to give " in English ), T ( for Theme ; normally the direct object of ditransitive verb in English ) and R ( for Recipient, normally the indirect object in English ), these can be aligned with the Agent and Patient of monotransitive verbs and the Subject of intransitive verbs in several ways, which are not predicted by whether the language is accusative, ergative, or active.

The term ergative is used in grammar in three different meanings:

Sumerian is a split ergative language.

Example of the ergative pattern: lugal-e e < sub > 2 </ sub > mu-un-du < sub > 3 </ sub > " the king built the house "; lugal ba-ĝen " the king went " ( the transitive subject is expressed differently from the intransitive subject, as it takes the suffix-e ).

Typologically, as mentioned above, Sumerian is classified as an agglutinative split ergative language.

Chechen is an ergative agglutinative language.

The Ubykh language is ergative and agglutinative, with polypersonal verbal agreement and a very large number of distinct consonants, but only two distinct vowels.

Besides their fairly consistent ergative alignment and their generally agglutinative morphology ( despite a number of not entirely predictable morpheme mergers ), Hurrian and Urartian are also both characterized by the use of suffixes in their derivational and inflectional morphology ( including ten to fifteen grammatical cases ) and postpositions in syntax ; both are considered to have the default order subject – object – verb, although there is significant variation, especially in Urartian.

In order to make this sentence grammatical, the antipassive, which promotes the original ergative to absolutive-and puts the former absolutive ( the woman ) into dative case -, has to be used:

In addition, in some language both nominative – accusative and ergative – absolutive systems may be used, split between different grammatical contexts.

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.

Georgian has seven grammatical cases: nominative, ergative ( also known in the Kartvelological literature as the narrative ( motxrobiti ) case, due to the rather inaccurate suggestion of regular ergativity, and that this case occurs

The division is usually based on semantic criteria regarding the nature of the subject and the verb ; for example, if the subject identifies an agent ( an active or intentional performer of the action of the verb ), then it might be marked with one case ( e. g. the ergative ), while if the subject identifies an experiencer of the event or one who does not actively initiate it, then it might be marked with another case ( e. g. the absolutive or nominative ).

For example, in Basque the noun mutil (" boy ") takes the bare singular article-a both as subject of the intransitive clause mutila etorri da (" the boy came ") and as object of the transitive clause Irakasleak mutila ikusi du (" the teacher has seen the boy "), in which the subject bears the ergative ending-a-k.

* It is ergative, making no syntactic distinction between the subject of an intransitive sentence and the direct object of a transitive sentence.

In linguistics, an ergative verb is a verb that can be either transitive or intransitive, and whose subject when intransitive corresponds to its direct object when transitive.

By contrast, with an ergative verb the role of the subject changes ; consider " it broke the window " ( transitive ) and " the window broke " ( intransitive ).

In Hurrian, only the person of the ergative subject is marked obligatorily through a suffix in a verb form, whereas the absolutive subject or object is optionally marked with a pronominal enclitic that need not be attached to the verb and can also be attached to any other word in the clause.

For example, both use-o -/- u-( rather than-i -) as the marker of transitive valency and both display the plural suffix-it -, expressing the number of the ergative subject and occupying a position before the valency marker.

This construction is similar to the passive voice, in that it decreases the verb's valency by one-the passive by deleting the subject ( and " promoting " the accusative object to a nominative subject ), the antipassive by deleting the object ( and " promoting " the ergative agent to an absolutive subject ).

The antipassive voice is found in ergative languages where the deletion of an object changes the subject from ergative case to absolutive, and also in certain accusative languages that have verbal agreement with both subject and object and where the antipassive is usually formed simply by deletion of the object affix.

In some languages the persons in between the accusative and ergative inflections ( such as second person, or third-person human ) may be tripartite: that is, marked overtly as either ergative or accusative in transitive clauses, but not marked as either in intransitive clauses.

In languages like Dakota, arguments of active verbs such as to run are marked like transitive agents, as in accusative languages, while arguments of inactive verbs such as to stand are marked like transitive objects, as in ergative languages.

An example of split ergativity conditioned by tense and aspect is found in the Hindi-Urdu language, which has an ergative case on subjects in the perfective aspect for transitive verbs in the active voice, while in other aspects ( habitual, progressive ) subjects appear in the nominative case.

In some languages, when the ergative model is foregrounded, the transitive / intransitive distinction does not affect the cases of the complements.

In the conjoined sentence the omitted argument ( the man ) would have to be in ergative case, being the agent of a transitive verb ( to see ).

# Ergative – absolutive ( or ergative ) alignment treats an intransitive argument like a transitive O argument ( S = O ; A separate ) ( see ergative – absolutive language ).