Redirected from Ergative
as opposed to the absolutive case which is assigned to:
To illustrate, first consider German:
In both of these, der Mann stands in the "der" or "nominative" case, while der Knabe stands instead in the "den" or "accusative" case. This kind of system is called a "nominative-accusative" system, or an "accusative" system for short. This is the kind of system English has, insofar as it has anything.
Now consider Basque:
In Basque, gizon is "man", mutil is "boy", and a suffix -a is "the". Notice that gizon is different depending on whether it is the subject of a transitive or intransitive verb. The first form is the absolutive case and the second form is the ergative case.
English does show a trace of ergativity. With an intransitive verb, adding the suffix "-ee" to the verb produces a label for the person performing the action:
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:
The differing effect of the "-ee" suffix, depending on the transitivity of the verb, can be considered ergativity. Another example of ergativity is the verb "open":
See also nominative case, absolutive case, accusative case, dative case, genitive case, vocative case, ablative case; compare to ergative verb.
In addition to Basque, many other languages utilize ergative case. They include:
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