I understand what the Sole, Agent, and Object are, but when I’m trying to figure out how to apply them to a constructed language, I’ve hit a wall and Wikipedia, which normally reading helps me to understand linguistic concepts, isn’t helping. Trying to think of how to write things like Ergative-Absolutive or Fluid-S Active-Stative is just out of reach. Like, would case markings each have their own forms depending on whether it’s the Sole, Agent, or Object (a genitive maybe being -an, -aila, -airn in a Tripartite alignment)? Is that how it works? Or am I missing something and that’s why it’s just not clicking for me?
In: Other
Morphosyntactic alignments are like different ways languages choose to group and mark the main participants in a sentence. Think of it as a game where languages decide which players get the same uniform.
In most languages, we have three main “players”:
1. S: The only participant in an intransitive sentence (Sole)
2. A: The doer in a transitive sentence (Agent)
3. O: The receiver of the action in a transitive sentence (Object)
Different alignments group these players differently:
1. Nominative-Accusative: S and A wear the same uniform, O wears a different one.
Example: “He (S) sleeps” and “He (A) sees her (O)”
2. Ergative-Absolutive: S and O wear the same uniform, A wears a different one.
Example: “He (S) sleeps” and “Him (O) sees she (A)”
3. Tripartite: Everyone wears a different uniform.
Example: “He (S) sleeps”, “She (A) sees him (O)”
4. Fluid-S/Active-Stative: S sometimes wears A’s uniform, sometimes O’s, depending on whether S is more “active” or “stative”.
Example: “He (S-active) runs” vs “He (S-stative) falls”
How this shows up in a language is variable:
– It might be through case markings (suffixes, prefixes, etc.)
– It might be through word order
– It might be through verb agreement
Your idea about case markings having different forms for S, A, and O in a Tripartite system is right. That’s one way it could work.
For a conlang, you decide:
1. How you want to group S, A, and O
2. How you want to mark these groupings (case, word order, verb agreement, etc.)
Latest Answers