Morphosyntactic alignment
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In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. The distinction can be made morphologically, with morphemes that mark grammatical case, or syntactically, by word order) or both.
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Semantics and grammatical relations
Transitive verbs have two core arguments, which in a language like English are subject and object. Intransitive verbs have a single core argument, which in English is the subject.
Of these three types of core argument, most languages treat two the same and the third distinctly. Theta roles may be used to conceptualize this alignment of the arguments. The most relevant roles are the agent, which carries out an action, the patient, which undergoes an action.
- Nominative-accusative languages treat the argument of an intransitive verb like an agent, with the patient distinct. That is, the subject of a transitive verb and the subject of an intransitive verb are treated alike (assuming the language has subjects), while the object of a transitive verb is treated differently. In a language with morphological case marking, an argument of an intransitive verb and an agent are both unmarked or marked with the nominative case, while the patient is marked with an accusative case. (There may be more than one case for a single category; for example, Baltic-Finnic languages use both the accusative case and the partitive case to mark the object. Some languages such as Yuman mark the nominative rather than the accusative, but this functions as more than just case marking.) Languages without case marking identify the arguments through word order (for example, in Subject Verb Object languages the nominative argument precedes the verb while the accusative argument follows). Many nominative-accusative languages can turn transitive verbs into intransitives by marking the patient with the nominative case and dropping the agent; this is called the passive voice.
- Ergative-absolutive languages treat an intransitive argument like a patient. An agent is marked with an ergative case (sometimes formally the same as the genitive or locative case), while an argument of an intransitive verb and a patient are left unmarked or sometimes marked with an absolutive case. Many linguists do not feel that these languages have anything equivalent to a subject. Ergative-absolutive languages can turn transitive verbs into intransitives by marking the agent with the ergative case and dropping the patient; this is called the antipassive voice.
- The Austronesian languages of the Philippines, Borneo, Taiwan, and Madagascar are well known for having both alignments, called voices. These are the Austronesian-alignment or Philippine-type languages. The alignments are often misleadingly called "active" and "passive" voice, but both have two core arguments, so increasingly the terms such as "actor focus" or "agent trigger" are used for the accusative type, and "undergoer focus" or "patient trigger" for the ergative type. Undergoer focus is the default alignment in these languages. For either alignment two cases are used, but the same morphology is used for the nominative and the absolutive, so there is a total of just three core cases: nominative-absolutive (usually called nominative), ergative, and accusative. Many Austronesianists argue that these languages have four alignments, with voices that mark a locative or benefactive with the nominative case, but others believe that these are not basic to the system.
- Active-stative languages treat an intransitive argument as either an agent or as a patient based on its semantics. The particular criteria vary from language to language, and may either be fixed lexically for each verb, or chosen by the speaker according to the degree of volition, control, or suffering of the verbal action by the participant, or the degree of sympathy the speaker has. (Note that agents and patients of transitive verbs are always treated as such.)
A very few languages make no distinction whatsoever between agent, patient, and intransitive arguments, leaving the hearer to rely entirely on context and common sense to figure them out. Some others, called tripartite languages, use a separate case or syntax for each argument, which are conventionally called the accusative case, the intransitive case, and the ergative case. Certain Iranian languages, such as Rushani, distinguish only transitivity, using a transitive case, for both agent and patient, and an intransitive case.
Furthermore, a single language may use nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive systems in different grammatical contexts, usually linked to animacy (Australian Aboriginal languages) or aspect (Mayan languages). This is called split ergativity, and indeed there is probably some degree of split in most ergative languages.
Ergative vs. accusative
Ergative languages contrast to nominative-accusative languages (such as English), which treat the objects of transitive verbs distinctly from other core arguments.
These different arguments can be symbolized as follows:
- O = object of transitive verb (also symbolized as P)
- S = subject of intransitive verb
- A = agent ("subject") of transitive verb
The relationship between ergative and accusative systems can be schematically represented as the following:
| Ergative-absolutive | Nominative-accusative | |
|---|---|---|
| O | same | different |
| S | same | same |
| A | different | same |
The following Basque examples demonstrate ergative-absolutive case marking system:
Ergative Language Sentence: Gizona etorri da. Gizonak mutila ikusi du. Words: gizona-∅ etorri da gizona-k mutila-∅ ikusi du Gloss: the.man-ABS has arrived the.man-ERG boy-ABS saw Function: S VERBintrans A O VERBtrans Translation: 'The man has arrived.' 'The man saw the boy.'
In Basque, gizona is "the man" and mutil is "boy". Gizona has a different case marking depending on whether it is the subject of a transitive or intransitive verb. The first form is in the absolutive case, marked here by a null morpheme (-∅) and the second form is in the ergative case, marked by a -k suffix. The subject of the intransitive sentence and the object of the transitive sentence both have the same absolutive case, while ergative case appears only on the transitive subject.
To contrast with a nominative-accusative language, Japanese marks nouns with a different case marking:
Accusative Language Sentence: Otoko ga tsuita. Otoko ga kodomo wo mita. Words: otoko ga tsuita otoko ga kodomo wo mita Gloss: man NOM arrived man NOM child ACC saw Function: S VERBintrans A O VERBtrans Translation: 'The man arrived.' 'The man saw the child.'
In this language, the subject otoko of intransitive and transitive sentences is marked with the same nominative case ga. However, the object of transitive sentence kodomo is marked with the accusative case wo. (Note that these particles are optional and not true case markers.)
Milewski's typology
Less widely known yet worth mention is a similar classification proposed in the 1960's by the Polish linguist Tadeusz Milewski. In this classification active and tripartite languages were omitted because they were little known at that time.
Milewski proposed a division of languages into 6 groups, based upon consideration of 4 main syntactic relationships; these were:
(1) the relationship of the experiencer</i> to the verb,
(2) the relationship of <i>the agent</i> to the verb,
(3) the relationship of <i>the patient</i> to the verb, and
(4) the relationship of <i>the nominal attribute</i> or predicate to the noun.
These criteria are interesting from a typological point of view because in many languages there is no difference between the sentence and the nominal phrase.
Milewski's typology can be employed when analyzing languages with case marking but can also be used with those which use a fixed word order or a specific form of incorporation. For simplicity, the table below classifies casual languages in which the nominal attribute is marked with the genitive case.
| class | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Experiencer to verb | a | a | a | a | a | a |
| Agent to verb | a | b | a | b | a | b |
| Patient to verb | b | a | b | a | b | a |
| Attribute to noun | c | c | b | b | a | a |
The letters a, b, and c represent formal inflective markers specific to each language. For instance, "a" always represents the formal marker by which the experiencer is signified, called either the "nominative" or the "absolutive" depending upon whether this morpheme marks the agent of the action (as in nominative-accusative languages) or the patient (as in ergative-absolutive languages).
As the table shows:
- In languages of the 1st class, the experiencer and the agent are marked with the nominative case (the "a" marker) while the patient is marked with the accusative case (the "b" marker).
This class is the most widely spread. Most nominative-accusative languages belong here. - Languages of the 2nd class inflect differently. The experiencer is marked with the same morpheme as the <i>patient while the agent is marked with a distinct morpheme. In contrast to Class 1 languages, the "a" marker represents the absolutive while the "b" marker denotes the ergative (in Class 1 languages, the "a" marker denotes the nominative and the "b" marker the accusative).
Most ergative-absolutive languages belong here. - Languages of the 3rd class could belong to nominative-accusative languages, i.e. the nominative marks both the agent and the experiencer (the "a" marker). Class 3 languages do not, however, contain distinct markers/cases for the patient and nominal attributes, which together share the same marker, which denotes genitive (the "b" marker).
Examples of languages of the 3rd class are Indonesian and Hopi.
It is interesting that marking the patient with the genitive is quite frequent in Slavic languages even if the accusative is usually applied in them just like in other European languages. - Languages of the 4th class could be considered ergative-absolutive languages insofar as they make no distinction between the experiencer and the patient, marking both with the absolutive (the "a" marker). Yet languages of this class are contrary to typical ergative-absolutive languages insofar as they mark both agent and nominal attribute as genitive (ergative-genitive, the "b" marker).
Examples of Class 4 languages are the Inuktitut, Salishan languages, and Mayan languages. - Languages of the 5th class use the genitive not only for the nominal attribute but also for the agent and the experiencer (the "a" marker). The other case, called the accusative, marks only the patient (the "b" marker).
The only language of this class mentioned by Milewski is Nass (Niska, Nisga'a) of the Tsimshianic family. - Languages of the 6th class use the genitive not only for the nominal attribute but also for the experiencer and the patient (the "a" marker"). The other case, the ergative, is used for the agent (the "b" marker).
This group is not too numerous: Tsimshian, Tunica and Guarani belong here.
External links
- Dave's Language Creation Notebook: Ergativity
- Case Marking and Ergativity - an article on Jiwarli with a clear explanation of nominative-accusative, ergative-absolutive and tripartite systems
Bibliography
- Anderson, Stephen. (1976). On the notion of subject in ergative languages. In C. Li. (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 1-24). New York: Academic Press.
- Anderson, Stephen R. (1985). Inflectional morphology. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon (Vol. 3, pp. 150-201). Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
- Comrie, Bernard. (1978). Ergativity. In W. P. Lehmann (Ed.), Syntactic typology: Studies in the phenomenology of language (pp. 329-394). Austin: University of Texas Press.
- Dixon, R. M. W. (1979). Ergativity. Language, 55 (1), 59-138. (Revised as Dixon 1994).
- Dixon, R. M. W. (Ed.) (1987). Studies in ergativity. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
- Dixon, R. M. W. (1994). Ergativity. Cambridge University Press.
- Foley, William; & Van Valin, Robert. (1984). Functional syntax and universal grammar. Cambridge University Press.
- Kroeger, Paul. (1993). Phrase structure and grammatical relations in Tagalog. Stanford: CSLI.
- Mallinson, Graham; & Blake, Barry J. (1981). Agent and patient marking. Language typology: Cross-linguistic studies in syntax (Chap. 2, pp. 39-120). North-Holland linguistic series. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company.
- Plank, Frans. (Ed.). (1979). Ergativity: Towards a theory of grammatical relations. London: Academic Press.
- Schachter, Paul. (1976). The subject in Philippine languages: Actor, topic, actor-topic, or none of the above. In C. Li. (Ed.), Subject and topic (pp. 491-518). New York: Academic Press.
- Schachter, Paul. (1977). Reference-related and role-related properties of subjects. In P. Cole & J. Sadock (Eds.), Syntax and semantics: Grammatical relations (Vol. 8, pp. 279-306). New York: Academic Press.
es:Alineamiento morfosintáctico pl:Stosunki morfosyntaktyczne