Ergative

From UniLang Wiki

Ergative case

The case normally used for the agent, i.e. the subject of the transitive verb, in ergative systems.

Ergative system

Languages which identify the subject of the intransitive verb with the object of the transitive verb as being in the absolutive case, and distinguish the subject of the transitive verb as being in the ergative case, are said to have an ergative system.

For example, in the Australian language Dyirbal:

ŋuma / yabu banaga-ɲu

father+abs / mother+abs return-past

"Father / mother returned"

ŋuma yabu-ŋgu buɽa-n

father+abs mother-erg see-past

"Mother saw father"

yabu ŋuma-ŋgu buɽa-n

mother+abs father-erg see-past

"Father saw mother"

It is as if one said in English *I saw him and him run away.

Many languages combine the ergative and accusative systems:

• the accusative system may be used for nouns higher in the empathy hierarchy: e.g. Basque, and many North Caucasian languages and Australian languages.
• the ergative may be used with past tense, or with the past perfective: e.g. the Eskimo and many Indo-Iranian and Polynesian languages.

Alternative constructions are the accusative, agentive, inverse, and topic systems.