Words: ergative-absolutive language ergative language
Part of speech: n
Definition: a type of language that has an ergative case or in which the direct object of a transitive verb has the same form as the subject of an intransitive verb.
Example: An ergative language maintains a syntactic or 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.