keel, mille transitiivse lause agent on markeeritud (nt ergatiiviga), patsient aga markeerimata käändes (absolutiivis) ning intransitiivse lause ainus osaleja on markeerimata käändes
a language in which the single argument ("subject") of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent ("subject") of a transitive verb
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nt baski keel
For instance, instead of saying "I moved her" and "she moved", speakers of an ergative language would say the equivalent of "I moved her" and "her moved".
Ergative case is the case of nouns in ergative-absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of transitive verbs in the translation equivalents of nominative-accusative languages such as English.
An ergative language maintains a syntactic or morphological equivalence (such as the same word order or grammatical case) for the object of a transitive verb and the single core argument of an intransitive verb, while treating the agent of a transitive verb differently. This contrasts with nominative–accusative languages such as English, where the single argument of an intransitive verb and the agent of a transitive verb (both called the subject) are treated alike and kept distinct from the object of a transitive verb.
