What is ergativity in linguistics?
Ergativity refers to a system of marking grammatical relations in which intransitive subjects pattern together with transitive objects (“absolutive”), and differently from transitive subjects (“ergatives”).
What is syntactic ergativity?
Syntactic ergativity is when syntactic processes are sensitive to the ergative- absolutive distinction. For example, some languages allow relativisation on absolutive arguments, but not on ergative arguments.
How do you know if a language is ergative?
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.
What is an ergative marker?
Ergativity is a term used in traditional descriptive and typological linguistics to refer to a system of nominal case-marking where the subject of an intransitive verb has the same morphological marker as a direct object, and a different morphological marker from the subject of a transitive verb.
What is the ergative case example?
An ergative verb is a verb that can be both transitive and intransitive, where the subject of the intransitive verb is the same as the object of the transitive verb. For example, ‘open’ is an ergative verb because you can say ‘The door opened’ or ‘She opened the door.
Where do you find absolutive case marking?
In marked nominative languages, where the nominative has case inflection, the accusative is unmarked and also serves as citation form. In these languages, the unmarked accusative/citation form is thus often called ‘absolutive’.
Is Tagalog an ergative language?
Determining whether a language is ergative or accusative is the result of examining the case marking alignment in transitive and intransitive clause types. This allows for the conclusion that Tagalog is an ergative language.
What is ergative structure?
In grammar and morphology, ergative is a verb that can be used in a construction in which the same noun phrase can serve as a subject when the verb is intransitive, and as a direct object when the verb is transitive. In general, ergative verbs tend to communicate a change of state, position, or movement.
What is the Absolutive case linguistics?
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ABS) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative–accusative languages such as English.
What is the difference between nominative accusative and ergative absolutive?
When there’s only one noun, is it marked like a subject, or like an object? If it’s marked like a subject, you have a nominative-accusative language. If it’s marked like an object, you have an ergative-absolutive language. In English, “he” is the subject form.
What is absolutive linguistics?
Definition of absolutive : of, relating to, or being an inflectional morpheme that typically marks the subject of an intransitive verb or the direct object of a transitive verb in an ergative language.
What is an example of an argumentative thesis?
In this example, I’ve narrowed my argument to the health consequences related to a diet of fast food. I’ve also chosen to focus on Americans rather than everyone in the universe. 2. A good argumentative thesis is centered on a debatable topic.
What is erergativity and why is it important?
Ergativity plays a central role in the study of case, agree- ment, and non-finite clauses. It casts light in addition on the constraints at play in A’ extraction.
How to write a good thesis statement?
A good trailer gives you the basic premise of the movie, shows you the highlights, and encourages you to want to see more. A good thesis statement will accomplish the same thing. It gives readers an idea of the most important points of an essay, shows the highlights, and makes them want to read more.