Previously, we have taken a look at the systems of morphosyntactic alignment that are commonly seen in the world's languages, as well as some of their rarer counterparts. From alignments like nominative-accusative and ergative-absolutive to rarer ones like symmetrical voice, we have seen how different languages have taken different approaches to express the relationship between … Continue reading Talking about the split-intransitivity alignment
morphosyntactic alignment
Nominative-accusative? Ergative-absolutive? What do these mean?
In language introduction essays done on this website, you might see these kinds of terminology thrown about without further elaboration given to them. For example, in some languages of Australia, you might have seen ergativity being used, as with the essay on Naukan Yupik and Chukchi. But what are these systems, and what kinds of … Continue reading Nominative-accusative? Ergative-absolutive? What do these mean?
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