Ergativity
English
editEtymology
editTransliteration Pronunciation
edit- Hangul (Korean transliteration): 어거티비티
Noun
editergativity (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.
- (linguistics) The property of a grammar's (or, by extension, a language's) being ergative; the attribute of having a grammatical pattern such that the object of a verb that takes an object (like “eat the apple”) is treated the same way as the subject of a verb that does not take an object (like “sleep”), while the doer of the action in a verb that takes an object is treated differently.