Deconstructing Ergativity: Two Types of Ergative Languages and Their Features (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax)
By Maria Polinsky.
Description
Nominative-accusative and ergative are two common alignment types found across languages. In the former type, the subject of an intransitive verb and the subject of a transitive verb are expressed the same way, and differently from the object of a transitive. In ergative languages, the subject of an intransitive and the object of a transitive appear in the same form, the absolutive, and the transitive subject has a special, ergative, form. Ergative languages often follow very different patterns, thus evading a uniform description and analysis. A simple explanation for that has to do with th...
ISBN(s)
0190256591, 9780190256593
