ergativity

== English == === Etymology === From ergative +‎ -ity. === Pronunciation === (UK) IPA(key): /ɜː(ɹ)ɡəˈtɪv.ɪ.ti/ === Noun === ergativity (uncountable) (linguistics) The property of a grammar's (or, by extension, a language's) being ergative; the attribute of possessing a grammatical pattern such that the object of a transitive verb is treated the same way as the subject of an intransitive one, while the subject of the transitive verb is treated differently. 2000, Javier Rivas, Ergativity and Transitive Gradients in the Accusative and Infinitive Construction, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Imprenta Universitaría, page 153, Apart from the types of split ergativity-accusativity dealt with in the previous section, there are languages which show degrees of ergativity in their morphology and also —although less frequently— in their syntax, […] . Actually, Dixon (1994: 172) claims that syntactic ergativity is much stranger cross-linguistically than some degree of morphological ergativity. […] There are many languages in the world which show some degree of ergativity. ==== Usage notes ==== Writers distinguish between morphological and syntactic ergativity, based on how it is manifested. (In studied languages, syntactic ergativity has not been observed to exist in the absence of the morphological sort.) For more details, see Ergativity § Realization of ergativity. ==== Coordinate terms ==== accusativity ==== Derived terms ==== ==== Translations ==== === See also === absolutive case accusativity ergative case === Further reading === Ergative–absolutive language on Wikipedia.Wikipedia Nominative–accusative language on Wikipedia.Wikipedia Morphosyntactic alignment on Wikipedia.Wikipedia