Definitions For Ergativity

Noun

ERGATIVITY (uncountable) (linguistics) The property of a grammar's (or, by extension, a language's) being ergative; the attribute of possessing a grammatical pattern such that the object of a transitive verb is treated the same way as the subject of an intransitive one, while the subject of the transitive verb is treated differently. :

Usage notes

Writers distinguish between morphological and syntactic ergativity, based on how it is manifested. (In studied languages, syntactic ergativity has not been observed to exist in the absence of the morphological sort.) For more details, see

Coordinate terms

accusativity

Translations

Dutch: ergativiteit, f Finnish: ergatiivisuus German: Ergativität, f Italian: ergatività, f

Etymology

From ergative + ity.

See also

absolutive case accusativity ergative case