ergative
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɜːɡətɪv/
enpr: ûr'gətĭv
ipa: /ˈɝɡətɪv/
ipa: [-ɾɪv]
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: The case systems of ergative languages are counter-intuitive to speakers of Indo-European languages.
text: The most common situation is for nouns to inflect according to a nominative-ergative pattern, while pronouns at least superficially follow a nominative-accusative pattern. That is, nouns have a single case (nominative) marking intransitive subject and transitive object functions, and another case (ergative) for transitive subject function.
ref: 1972, R[obert] M[alcolm] W[ard] Dixon, “Australian Languages”, in The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics; 9), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, →ISBN, page 4:
text: For Podopa, the actor of most transitive verbs (and of some intransitive verbs as well) may occur with or without the ergative case suffix, but with a semantic difference. The ergative suffix indicates that the actor is acting independently, is self-motivated, and exerts his personal control over the situation; while its lack indicates that the actor is performing according to his set social obligations, not according to his own independent will, and does not assert his personal control over the situation.
ref: 1986, William A[uguste] Foley, “Nominals”, in The Papuan Languages of New Guinea (Cambridge Language Surveys), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire; New York, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, published 1999, →ISBN, page 108:
text: The ergative case marks the agent of a transitive verb. The ergative suffix is -le/-re/-lle/-ʔille. The form of the ergative suffix is /-le/ for the indefinite and /-ʔille/ for the definite after the consonants /ʔ/, /k/, /t/, /p/, /b/, /ŋ/, /n/ and /m/.
ref: 1987, George van Driem, “Nominal Morphology”, in A Grammar of Limbu (Mouton Grammar Library; 4), Berlin; New York, N.Y.: Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 39:
text: In Section 1 I will discuss the existence of a class of ergative adjectives in Dutch[…]. It will be demonstrated that there are a number of arguments supporting the claim that the class of adjectives should be divided into ergative and unergative adjectives. A large number of adjectives that are unergative according to the tests provided in Section 2 appear to be ergative with respect to their argument structure.
ref: 2000, Hans Bennis, “Adjectives and Argument Structure”, in Peter Coopmans, Martin Everaert, Jane Grimshaw, editors, Lexical Specification and Insertion (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory; 197), Amsterdam; Philadelphia, Pa.: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, →ISSN, pages 27–28:
text: Another difference between C. Barwar and Kurdish is the fact that in C. Barwar the compound perfect construction is not ergative. […] In Kurdish, on the other hand, the corresponding compound construction, which appears to have been the model for the NENA [North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic] construction, is ergative in form when the verb is transitive. The loss of the ergative inflection in C. Barwar and most other NENA dialects is again a development internal to NENA. The original ergative type of construction has survived only in a few Jewish dialects on the eastern periphery.
ref: 2008, Geoffrey Khan, “Introduction”, in HdO: The Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Barwar (Handbook of Oriental Studies; Section 1 (The Near and Middle East); 96), volume 1 (Grammar), Leiden; Boston, Mass.: Brill, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 22:
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
synonyms: elliptical
antonyms: unergative
glosses: With the subject of a transitive construction having grammatical cases or thematic relations different from those of an intransitive construction.
Derived terms: ergative-absolutive
ergative case
ergatively
ergativeness
ergative verb
ergativity
nonergative
unergative
Related terms: absolutive
stative