ergative
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɜːɡətɪv/
enpr: ûr'gətĭv
ipa: /ˈɝɡətɪv/
ipa: [-ɾɪv]
Forms: form: ergatives
Etymology: From Ancient Greek ἐργᾰ́της (ergắtēs, “labourer, worker”) + English -ive (suffix meaning ‘belong or relating to; of the nature of; serving to; tending to’ forming adjectives).
Senses: examples: text: Samoan, for example, differs from the usual pattern displayed by split ergative languages in that the appearance of the ergative is grounded in sociolinguistic factors as well as syntactic ones. The more formal register of Samoan requires the ergative on all postverbal transitive subjects. The less formal register allows the ergative not to be expressed at all.
ref: 2006, Miriam Butt, “The Ergative Dragon”, in Theories of Case (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 178:
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glosses: Ellipsis of ergative case (“a grammatical case used to indicate the agent of a transitive verb in ergative-absolutive languages”).
examples: text: Unlike those with subjectivized ergatives, such locative clauses naturally do not allow for imperatives (*Contain the apples).
ref: 1971, John M[athieson] Anderson, “Locative”, in The Grammar of Case: Towards a Localistic Theory (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics; 4), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, published 1976, →ISBN, part III (Locative and Ablative), page 90:
text: Woodbury (1975) does argue, however, that absolutives are more relativisable in Greenlandic than are ergatives, on the grounds that (1) RCs [Relative Clauses] formed on ergatives are somewhat more restricted in the distribution in matrix clauses (p. 21) than are those formed on absolutives, and (2) for certain verb classes ergatives cannot be relativised out of the active participle (p. 27).
ref: 1987, Edward L. Keenan, Bernard Comrie, “Noun Phrase Accessibility and Universal Grammar”, in Edward L. Keenan, Universal Grammar: 15 Essays (Croom Helm Linguistics Series), Beckenham, Kent; North Ryde, N.S.W.: Croom Helm, →ISBN, part 1 (Cross Language Variation), page 26:
text: Ergatives share close similarities with agentless passives: Both are intransitive, both lack an agent, while the patient appears in the subject position. As the acquisition data show, learners seem to treat ergatives like passives.
ref: 1994, Virginia Yip, “Grammatical Consciousness-raising and Learnability”, in Terence Odlin, editor, Perspectives on Pedagogical Grammar (Cambridge Applied Linguistics), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 128:
text: Combining two ergatives in one clause is not always ungrammatical in Agul; but one of the ergatives must be used in a non-agentive function, e.g. instrumental or temporal.
ref: 2012, Michael A. Daniel, Timur A. Maisak, Solmaz R. Merdanova, “Causatives in Agul”, in Pirkko Suihkonen, Bernard Comrie, Valery D. Solovyev, editors, Argument Structure and Grammatical Relations: A Crosslinguistic Typology (Studies in Language Companion Series; 126), Amsterdam; Philadelphia, Pa.: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 66:
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
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glosses: An ergative verb or other expression.