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 ...

, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergative constructions are used varies among different languages.

Nominative–accusative vs. ergative–absolutive

Nominative–accusative languages (including European languages, with the notable exception of

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

) treat both the actor in a clause with a

transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''. Transitiv ...

and the experiencer in a clause with an

intransitive verb In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...

in the same way grammatically. If the language uses

case marker In linguistics, a marker is a free or bound morpheme that indicates the grammatical function of the marked word, phrase, or sentence. Most characteristically, markers occur as clitics or inflectional affixes. In analytic languages and agglutinative ...

s, they take the same case. If it uses word order, it is parallel. For example, consider these two English sentences: * Jane was chasing John. * Jane was sweating. The grammatical role of "Jane" is identical. In both cases, "Jane" is the subject. In ergative–absolutive languages (such as

and Georgian, or the

Eskimo–Aleut The Eskaleut (), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of w ...

and Mayan languages), there is a different pattern. The patient (or target) of a transitive verb and the experiencer of an intransitive verb are treated the same grammatically. If the two sentences above were expressed in an ergative language, "John" in the former and "Jane" in the latter would be parallel grammatically. Also, a different form (the ''ergative'') would be used for "Jane" in the first sentence. For example, in the following

Inuktitut Inuktitut (; , syllabics ; from , "person" + , "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces o ...

sentences, the subject 'the woman' is in ergative case (''arnaup'') when occurring with a transitive verb, while the object 'the apple' (''aapu'') is in absolutive case. In the intransitive sentence, the subject 'the woman' ''arnaq'' is in absolutive case. * ''Arnaup nirijanga aapu.'' 'The woman is eating the apple.' * ''Arnaq pisuktuq.'' 'The woman is walking.' In split ergative languages, some constructions pattern with nominative–accusative, and others with ergative–absolutive.

Split conditions

The split is usually conditioned by one of the following: # The presence of a discourse participant (a first or second person) in the proposition. The Australian language Dyirbal behaves ergatively in all

morphosyntactic In linguistics, morphology () is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words such as stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Morph ...

contexts unless one of those is involved. When a first- or second-person pronoun appears, however, it is marked according to a nominative–accusative pattern (with the least-marked case, when it is the agent or intransitive, or with the most marked case, when it is the patient). That can be explained in terms of the high

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 th ...

of a first-person or second-person speaker in the animacy hierarchy. # The use of certain

aspect Aspect or Aspects may refer to: Entertainment * ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art * Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company * Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England * ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...

s and/or tenses in the verb. The Indo-Iranian family, for example, shows a split between the

perfective 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 im ...

and the

imperfective aspect The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a gen ...

. In Hindustani (

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been d ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

in the

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 i ...

causes its arguments to be marked by an ergative pattern, and the imperfective aspects trigger accusative marking. # The type of marking involved. Some languages (including various Austronesian languages of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

such as Sinaugoro) have an ergative–absolutive pattern with respect to the marking of

case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...

marking but a nominative–accusative pattern with respect to

agreement Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus, a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of law ** Meeting of ...

. # The agentivity of the intransitive subject. In languages like

Dakota Dakota may refer to: * Dakota people, a sub-tribe of the Sioux ** Dakota language, their language Dakota may also refer to: Places United States * Dakota, Georgia, an unincorporated community * Dakota, Illinois, a town * Dakota, Minnesota ...

, arguments of active verbs, such as ''to run'', are marked like transitive agents, as in accusative languages, but arguments of inactive verbs, such as ''to stand'' are marked like transitive objects, as in ergative languages. Languages with such a marking are known as split-S languages and are formally a subtype of active languages. # Pragmatic considerations or for emphasis, contrast, or clarity. In certain Tibeto-Burmese languages, elicited data has consistent ergative, aspectually split-ergative or active-stative case marking pattern, and in natural discourse the “ergative” marking is found only in some clauses, often a minority, usually with some pragmatic sense of emphasis or contrast (DeLancey, 2011).

Examples

Hindi–Urdu

An example of split ergativity conditioned by the

grammatical aspect In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to ...

is found in Hindustani (

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

of transitive verbs (in active voice), the subject takes

ergative case In grammar, the ergative case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that identifies the noun as the agent of a transitive verb in ergative–absolutive languages. Characteristics In such languages, the ergative case is typically marked (mos ...

and the direct object takes an unmarked

absolutive case In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) 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� ...

identical to the

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 Engl ...

, which is sometimes called

direct case A direct case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case used with all three core relations: both the agent and patient of transitive verbs and the argument of intransitive verbs, though not always at the same time. The direct case contrasts with othe ...

. However, in all other aspects ( habitual &

progressive Progressive may refer to: Politics * Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform ** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context * Progressive realism, an American foreign policy pa ...

), subjects appear either in the

direct Direct may refer to: Mathematics * Directed set, in order theory * Direct limit of (pre), sheaves * Direct sum of modules, a construction in abstract algebra which combines several vector spaces Computing * Direct access (disambiguation), a ...

dative case In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...

(see dative subjects), while direct objects continue to appear in the

(the subject of such sentences is differentiated from the direct object not from a difference in case but from the agreement of the verb with the subject as well as other syntactic and contextual cues such as word order and meaning). In the following perfective sentence, the agent ''laṛke-ne'' ''(boy)'' is marked for

, while the undergoer ''kitāb'' ''(book)'' is in unmarked nominative case. The verb ''kharīdī'' (bought) has the feminine ending ''-ī'', showing gender agreement with the undergoer ''kitāb (book)''. In the corresponding

imperfective The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a gen ...

(

habitual aspect In linguistics, the aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof) in a given action, event, or state. As its name suggests, the habitual aspect ( abbreviated ), not to be confused with iterative aspec ...

) sentence, the agent ''laṛkā'' ''(boy)'' is in unmarked

. The habitual participle form ''kharīdatā'' ''(buy)'' has the masculine ending ''-ā'' and thus agrees with the agent ''laṛkā (boy)''. Perfective constructions with certain VV (verb-verb) complexes do not employ ergative case marking (seeː light verbs in hindi-urdu). In perfective constructions, the agent argument is ideally assigned with an ergative case; however in cases like the first example shown below that does not happen. This is because the explicator verb ''gayī'' (gone) which although undergoes

semantic bleaching In historical linguistics, grammaticalization (also known as grammatization or grammaticization) is a process of language change by which words representing objects and actions (i.e. nouns and verbs) become grammatical markers (such as affixes or p ...

but still retains its intransitivity which does not allow for an ergative case assignment to the agent argument (i.e., ''ninā''). This is why as shown in the second example below, VV complexes involving a transitive explicator verb (e.g., ''phẽkā'' "threw") can employ ergative case to agent arguments.

Chol (Mayan)

The Mayan language Chol has split-ergative person marking. In transitive clauses, verbs are framed by a person marking prefix (called "set A" in Mayan linguistics) that expresses the subject, and a suffix that expresses the object (= "set B"). In intransitive clauses, the subject can either be represented by a set A-person marker, or a set B-person marker, depending on

. In ''perfective'' aspect, Chol has ''ergative–absolutive'' alignment: the subject of the intransitive verb is expressed by a suffixed person marker, thus in the same way as the object of transitive verbs. In ''imperfective'' aspect, Chol has ''nominative–accusative'' alignment: the subject of the intransitive verb is expressed by a prefixed person marker, thus in the same way as the subject of transitive verbs.

Sahaptin

Columbia River The Columbia River ( Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, ...

Sahaptin The Sahaptin are a number of Native American tribes who speak dialects of the Sahaptin language. The Sahaptin tribes inhabited territory along the Columbia River and its tributaries in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Sahaptin-s ...

, the split is determined by the person of both subject and object. The ergative suffix ''-nɨm'' occurs only for third-person subjects for which the direct object is in the first or the second person. Another ergative suffix, ''-in'', marks the subject in the inverse. Both subject and object are then always in the third-person. Direct (same as above example): Inverse:

Notes

Bibliography

* Dixon, R. M. W. (1994). ''Ergativity''. Cambridge University Press. . {{refend Grammar