Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
ergative language (also absolutive language)
Language type in relational typology which contrasts with nominative languages and active languages. Assuming that the most important thematic relations in basic transitive and intransitive sentences are those of agent and patient, ergative languages can be defined as follows: the basic (=unmarked) case in these languages, the absolutive, designates the patient of transitive verbs as well as the single argument of intransitive verbs regardless of its thematic relation. The marked case, the ergative serves to express the agent of transitive verbs. This situation can be depicted as follows:
The following sentences from Basque serve as an illustration: Mi-k (‘I’ erg.) gizona (‘man’ abs.) ikusi dut (‘have seen’) ‘I saw the man’ vs Gizona (‘man’ abs.) etorri da (‘has come’) ‘The man has come.’ The patient of transitive verbs and the single argument of intransitive verbs are treated alike morphologically and, in a consistent ergative language, syntactically as well. In contrast, nominative languages such as English treat the agent of transitive verbs and the single argument of intransitive verbs in the same way:
Ergative languages are frequent among the Caucasian (Georgian, Ubykh), Austronesian (
Malayo-Polynesian) (Tongan), Australian (Dyirbal), and Mayan (Tzeltal) languages. Sometimes ergative languages are split nominative-ergative. Thus in many Australian languages the pronominal system patterns as in a nominative language, while the nouns are case-marked according to the ergative system. In some Asian languages (e.g. in Hindi ( Hindi-Urdu)) sentences in some tenses are ergative, but otherwise the language is nominative. Some authors claim that ergativity is also found in languages such as German and Italian; cf. unaccusative).
References
Comrie, B. 1978. Ergativity. In W.P.Lehmann (ed.), Syntactic typology: studies in the phenomenology of language. Austin, TX. 329–94.
Dixon, R.M.W. 1979. Ergativity. Lg 55. 59–138.
——(ed.) 1987. Studies in ergativity. Lingua 71 (special issue).
——1994. Ergativity. Cambridge.
Mallinson, G. and B.J.Blake. 1981. Language typology. Amsterdam.
Moravcsik, A. 1978. On the distribution of ergative and accusative patterns.
Lingua 45. 233–79.
Plank, F. (ed.) 1979. Ergativity: towards a theory of grammatical relations. London.
——(ed.) 1985. Relational typology. Berlin and New York.
Primus, B. 1994. Relational typology. In J.Jacobs et al. (eds), Syntax: an international handbook of contemporary research, vol. 2. Berlin and New York. 1076–109.
Sapir, E. 1917. Review of C.C.Uhlenbeck, Het passieve karakter van het verbum transitivum van het verbum actionis in talen van Noord Amerika. IJAL 1. 82–6.
Silverstein, M. 1976. Hierarchy of features and ergativity. In R.M.W.Dixon (ed.), Grammatical categories in Australian languages. Canberra. 112–71.
Van Valin, R. 1977. Ergativity and the universality of subjects. CLS 13. 689–705.
Bibliography
Plank, F. 1979. Bibliography on ergativity. In F. Plank (ed.), Ergativity: towards a theory of grammatical relations. London. 511–54.
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