Editing Circassian languages (section)

== Ergative–absolutive ==
In the following example, we demonstrate an ergative–absolutive case marking system while using the same verb "break" in both intransitive and transitive forms:
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="7" align="center" | Ergative language
|-
! Sentence:
| colspan="2" | ''ӏанэр мэкъутэ.''
|     
| colspan="3" | ''Лӏым ӏанэр екъутэ.''
|-
! Word:
| ӏанэ<span style="color:#008000">'''-р'''</span>
| мэкъутэ
|     
| Лӏы<span style="color:#800000">'''м'''</span>
| ӏанэ<span style="color:#008000">'''р'''</span>
| екъутэ
|-
! Gloss:
| The table<span style="color:#008000">'''-<small>ABS</small>'''</span>
| breaks
|     
| The man<span style="color:#800000">'''-<small>ERG</small>'''</span>
| the table<span style="color:#008000">'''-<small>ABS</small>'''</span>
| breaks
|-
! Function:
| <span style="color:#008000">'''S'''</span>
| VERB<sub>intrans</sub>
|     
| <span style="color:#800000">'''A'''</span>
| <span style="color:#008000">'''O'''</span>
| VERB<sub>trans</sub>
|-
! Translation:
| colspan="2" | "The table breaks."
|     
| colspan="3" | "The man breaks the table."
|}
Here, "table" has the absolutive case mark -р /-r/ while "man" has the ergative case mark -м /-m/. We also have the verb "break" in intransitive form "мэкъутэ" and transitive form "екъутэ". In the example above, we specifically used SOV order, but Circassian allows any order.