Editing Marked nominative alignment (section)

{{About|the alignment type with a marked nominative and unmarked accusative case|the alignment type attested in some [[indigenous languages of South America|South American indigenous languages]] in which the intransitive subject patterns both as a [[nominative–accusative language|nominative]] and as an [[ergative–absolutive language|absolutive]] argument|nominative–absolutive alignment}}

{{More citations needed|date=March 2017}}
{{linguistic typology topics}}

In [[linguistic typology]], '''marked nominative alignment''' is an unusual type of [[morphosyntactic alignment]] similar to, and often considered a subtype of, a [[nominative–accusative language|nominative–accusative]] alignment. In a prototypical nominative–accusative language with a [[grammatical case]] system like [[Latin]], the object of a verb is marked for [[accusative case]], and the subject of the verb may or may not be marked for [[nominative case]]. The nominative, whether or not it is marked morphologically, is also used as the citation form of the noun. In a marked nominative system, on the other hand, it is the nominative case alone that is usually marked morphologically, and it is the unmarked accusative case that is used as the citation form of the noun.<ref name=Dixon1994>Dixon 1994, pp. 63–67</ref> The unmarked accusative (sometimes called [[absolutive case|absolutive]]) is typically also used with a wide range of other functions that are associated with the nominative in nominative-accusative languages; they often include the [[subject complement]] and a subject moved to a more prominent place in the sentence in order to express topic or focus.<ref>{{cite book |last=König |first=Christa |year=2008 |title=Case in Africa |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref>