In
linguistic typology
Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the co ...
, transitive alignment is a type of
morphosyntactic alignment used in a small number of languages in which a single
grammatical case is used to mark both
arguments of a
transitive verb, but not with the single argument of an
intransitive verb. Such a situation, which is quite rare among the world's languages, has also been called a ''double-
oblique'' clause structure.
Rushani
Rushani is one of the Pamir languages spoken in Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
Rushani is relatively closer to all Northern Pamiri languages sub-group whether it is Shughni language, Shughni, Yazgulyam language, Yazgulami, Sarikoli language, Sariku ...
, an
Iranian dialect, has this alignment in the past tense. That is, in the past tense (or perhaps
perfective aspect
The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imp ...
), the agent and object of a transitive verb are marked with the same case ending, while the subject of an intransitive verb is not marked. In the present tense, the object of the transitive verb is marked, the other two roles are not – that is, a typical
nominative–accusative alignment.
[J.R. Payne, 'Language Universals and Language Types', in Collinge, ed. 1990. ''An Encyclopedia of Language''. Routledge. From Payne, 1980.]
Intransitive: no case marking
:
:'I went to Xorog'
Transitive, past tense: double case marking
:
:'I saw you'
:(double oblique: literally 'me saw thee')
Transitive, present tense: accusative case marking
:
:'I see you'
:(nominative–accusative)
According to Payne, it's clear what happened here: Rushani once had a
split-ergative alignment, as is common in the area, where the object was marked (oblique) in the present tense, but the agent was marked in the past. The case forms of the object were then
leveled, and with the marking applied to the past tense as well. However, this resulted in a complication, the typologically unusual situation where the agent and object are treated the same, and different from the intransitive subject. Given its rarity, one might expect such a system to be unstable, and indeed it appears to be changing. Payne reports that younger speakers change the past-tense construction to one of the following, either using the absolutive (= nominative) inflection for the agent:
:
:'I saw you'
:(nominative–accusative)
or secondarily marking the object as an object, using the preposition ''az'' (literally 'from'):
:
:'I saw you'
:(effectively, accusative and double-accusative)
See also
*
Intransitive case
In grammar, the intransitive case (abbreviated ), also denominated passive case or patient case, is a grammatical case used in some languages to mark the argument of an intransitive verb, but not used with transitive verbs. It is generally seen in ...
*
Accusative case
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
*
Ergative case
References
Grammatical cases
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