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.
What is an ergative 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”).
Is English nominative-accusative?
English has nominative–accusative alignment in its case marking of personal pronouns: the single argument (S) of an intransitive verb (“I” in the sentence “I walked.”) behaves grammatically like the agent (A) of a transitive verb (“I” in the sentence “I saw them.”) but differently from the object (O) of a transitive …
What is nominative and accusative case?
Nominative: The naming case; used for subjects. Genitive: The possession case; used to indicate ownership. Accusative: The direct object case; used to indicate direct receivers of an action.
What is Ergative Absolutive case?
In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the single argument (“subject”) of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent of a transitive verb.
What is syntactic ergativity?
This chapter presents the phenomenon of syntactic ergativity (SE), defined as the grouping of the absolutive subject and absolutive object into a natural class, to the exclusion of the ergative argument, with respect to A′-movement.
What is the meaning of Ambitransitive?
An ambitransitive verb is a verb that is both intransitive and transitive. This verb may or may not require a direct object. English has many ambitransitive verbs. Examples include read, break, and understand (e.g., “I read the book”, saying what was read, or just “I read all afternoon”).
How do you know if its nominative or accusative?
The nominative case is used for sentence subjects. The subject is the person or thing that does the action. For example, in the sentence, “the girl kicks the ball”, “the girl” is the subject. The accusative case is for direct objects.
What is nominative accusative?
What is an accusative case?
In the grammar of some languages, the accusative, or the accusative case, is the case used for a noun when it is the direct object of a verb, or the object of some prepositions. In English, only the pronouns ‘me,’ ‘him,’ ‘her,’ ‘us,’ and ‘them’ are in the accusative. Compare nominative.
What is morphological ergativity?
Essentially, morphological ergativity is when there is a morphological case distinction between ergative and absolutive, like the Latin morphological distinction betwen nominative and accusative. Syntactic ergativity is when syntactic processes are sensitive to the ergative- absolutive distinction.
What is nominative–accusative alignment?
(February 2016) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) In linguistic typology, nominative–accusative alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which subjects of intransitive verbs are treated like subjects of transitive verbs, and are distinguished from objects of transitive verbs in basic clause constructions.
What makes a nominative–accusative case marking system?
One of the ways in which the production of a nominative–accusative case marking system can be explained is from an Optimality Theoretic perspective. Case marking is said to fulfill two functions, or constraints: an identifying function and a distinguishing function.
What is the difference between the nominative and accusative cases?
Two of these cases are the nominative and the accusative. der Nominativ: The subject is always in the nominative case. The articles take the form: der/ein, die/eine, das/ein, die/-. der Akkusativ: Most objects are in the accusative case. The articles take the form: den/einen, die/eine, das/ein, die/-.
What is a nominative-accusative language?
Languages with nominative–accusative alignment are commonly called nominative–accusative languages . A transitive verb is associated with two noun phrases (or arguments ): a subject and a direct object. An intransitive verb is associated with only one argument, a subject.