Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics.pdf

Dictionary of language and linguistics 376ReferencesAnderson, J.M. 1968. Ergative and nominative in English. JL 4. 1–32.——1971. The grammar of case: towards a localistic theory. Cambridge.ergative languageergative language (also absolutive language)Language type in relational typology which contrasts with nominative languages andactive languages. Assuming that the most important thematic relations in basictransitive and intransitive sentences are those of agent and patient, ergative languages canbe 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 intransitiveverbs regardless of its thematic relation. The marked case, the ergative serves to expressthe 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 (‘hascome’) ‘The man has come.’ The patient of transitive verbs and the single argument ofintransitive verbs are treated alike morphologically and, in a consistent ergative language,syntactically as well. In contrast, nominative languages such as English treat the agent oftransitive 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 manyAustralian languages the pronominal system patterns as in a nominative language, whilethe 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 thelanguage is nominative. Some authors claim that ergativity is also found in languagessuch as German and Italian; cf. unaccusative).