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 ...

, marked nominative alignment is an unusual type of

morphosyntactic alignment In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the grammatical relationship between arguments—specifically, between the two arguments (in English, subject and object) of transitive verbs like ''the dog chased the cat'', and the single argument ...

similar to, and often considered a subtype of, a nominative–accusative alignment. In a prototypical nominative–accusative language with a

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...

system like

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

, the object of a verb is marked for

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 ‘t ...

, and the subject of the verb may or may not be marked for

nominative case In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Eng ...

. The nominative, whether or not it is marked morphologically, is also used as the citation form of the noun. In a marked nominative system, on the other hand, it is the nominative case alone that is usually marked morphologically, and it is the unmarked accusative case that is used as the citation form of the noun.Dixon 1994, pp. 63–67 The unmarked accusative (sometimes called absolutive) is typically also used with a wide range of other functions that are associated with the nominative in nominative-accusative languages; they often include the subject complement and a subject moved to a more prominent place in the sentence in order to express topic or focus.

Distribution

Marked nominative languages are relatively rare. They are well-documented in only two regions of the world: in northern Africa, where they occur in many languages of the

Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As o ...

Omotic The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Omo River region. The Ge'ez script is used to write some of the Omotic languages, the Latin script for some others. They are fairly agglutinative and have co ...

and

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–19 ...

branches of the

Afroasiatic The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic su ...

family, as well as in the Surmic and

Nilotic languages The Nilotic languages are a group of related languages spoken across a wide area between South Sudan and Tanzania by the Nilotic peoples. Etymology The word Nilotic means of or relating to the Nile River or to the Nile region of Africa. Dem ...

of the

Eastern Sudanic In most classifications, the Eastern Sudanic languages are a group of nine families of languages that may constitute a branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. Eastern Sudanic languages are spoken from southern Egypt to northern Tanzania. N ...

family; and in the southwestern United States and adjacent parts of Mexico, where they are characteristic of the Yuman family. Other languages interpreted by some authors as having a marked nominative system include Igbo, Aymara and

Wappo The Wappo ( endonym: ''Micewal'') are an indigenous people of northern California. Their traditional homelands are in Napa Valley, the south shore of Clear Lake, Alexander Valley, and Russian River valley. They are distantly related to the ...

. It is also proposed that marked-nominative alignment can be reconstructed for the ancestor of the

Afroasiatic languages The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic ...

, viz. Proto-Afroasiatic. In Yuman and many of the Cushitic languages, however, the nominative is not always marked for reasons that are not known. There may, therefore, be not a strict case system but a reflection of discourse patterns or other non-

semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

parameters. However, the Yuman language

Havasupai The Havasupai people (Havasupai: ''Havsuw' Baaja'') are an American Indian tribe who have lived in the Grand Canyon for at least the past 800 years. ''Havasu'' means "blue-green water" and ''pai'' "people". Located primarily in an area know ...

is reported to have a purely syntactic case system, with a suffix ''-č'' marking all subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs but not of the copula; in the Nilotic language Datooga, the system is also reported to be purely syntactic. As in many Nilotic languages, Datooga case is marked by tone. The absolutive case has the unpredictable tone of the citation form of the noun, but the nominative is marked by a characteristic tone that obliterates the lexical tone. The tone is high for words of three syllables or less; for words with four or more syllables, the ends of the word have high tone, with a low tone in the middle of the word. In most African languages with a marked nominative, the nominative is used for subjects following the verb, the absolutive with the copula, with subjects in focus position before the verb, and in all other situations. Okinawan, a

Japonic language Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan, sometimes also Japanic, is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and ...

, is generally a marked nominative language where nominative subjects are marked with the case particles ''ga'' or ''nu'' depending on their level of

animacy Animacy (antonym: inanimacy) is a grammatical and semantic feature, existing in some languages, expressing how sentient or alive the referent of a noun is. Widely expressed, animacy is one of the most elementary principles in languages around ...

. Unmarked nouns are by default in the accusative case. However, some verbs of existence and emergence may also have optionally unmarked nominative subjects.

Notes

References

* * Hinton, Leanne (1984). ''Havasupai songs : a linguistic perspective'' * Kießling, Roland (2007). "The 'marked nominative' in Datooga", ''Journal of African languages and linguistics,'' vol. 28, no2, pp. 149–191 * ''The World Atlas of Language Structures Online

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nominative-absolutive language Linguistic typology

Distribution

See also

Notes

References