Editing Ergative–absolutive alignment (section)

==Ergative vs. accusative languages==

An ergative language maintains a [[syntax|syntactic]] or [[morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] equivalence (such as the same [[word order]] or [[grammatical case]]) for the object of a transitive verb and the single core argument of an intransitive verb, while treating the agent of a transitive verb differently. Such languages are said to operate with S/O [[syntactic pivot]].

This contrasts with [[Nominative–accusative language|nominative–accusative]] languages such as [[English language|English]], where the single [[Argument (linguistics)|argument]] of an intransitive verb and the [[Agent (grammar)|agent]] of a transitive verb (both called the [[subject (grammar)|subject]]) are treated alike and kept distinct from the object of a transitive verb. Such languages are said to operate with S/A (syntactic) pivot.

{{multiple image
|align=left
|image1=Ergative alignment.svg
|caption1=Ergative alignment (intransitive '''S'''ubject and transitive '''O'''bject treated the same way) displaying S/O [[syntactic pivot|pivot]]
|image2=Accusative alignment.svg |caption2=Accusative alignment (intransitive '''S'''ubject and transitive '''A'''gent treated the same way) displaying S/A pivot}}
{{Clear|left}}

(reference for figure:<ref name="auto">Friend, Some Syntactic and Morphological Features of Suleimaniye Kurdish, UCLA, 1985</ref>)

These different arguments are usually symbolized as follows:
* '''A''' = agent of transitive verb
* '''O''' = object of transitive verb (also symbolized as '''P''' for "patient")
* '''S''' = core argument (i.e. [[Subject (grammar)|subject]]) of intransitive verb

The relationship between ergative and accusative systems can be schematically represented as the following:

{| class="wikitable"
!
! Ergative–absolutive
! Nominative–accusative
|-
| '''A'''
| <span style="color:#800000">ERG</span>
| <span style="color:#008000">NOM</span>
|-
| '''O'''
| <span style="color:#008000">ABS</span>
| <span style="color:#800000">ACC</span>
|-
| '''S'''
| <span style="color:#008000">ABS</span>
| <span style="color:#008000">NOM</span>
|}

''See [[morphosyntactic alignment]] for a more technical explanation and a comparison with [[nominative–accusative language]]s.''

The word ''subject'', as it is typically defined in grammars of nominative–accusative languages, has a different application when referring to ergative–absolutive languages, or when discussing [[morphosyntactic alignment]] in general.

Ergative languages tend to be either verb-final or verb-initial; there are few, if any, ergative [[Subject–verb–object word order|SVO]] languages.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~asw/lab/lab87/LAB87_lahne.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2009-10-29 |archive-date=2011-06-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613112247/http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~asw/lab/lab87/LAB87_lahne.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>