What is ergativity in linguistics? (And other follow-up questions)

Question

I’m not a bonafide linguist, but I’ve studied a dozen languages—some formally, some informally, some only on a surface level, some deep enough that I’ve needed to dip my toes into proper linguistics to go further. While I’m sure the iceberg goes deeper than I’ll ever know, the one topic I still haven’t gotten even a basic grasp on is ergativity, which is wild because *apparently* it’s a main feature of many languages. I would say I get the gist of it, but that’s not even true. At best, I know which parts of speech it involves, and I won’t even say that out loud because I may well be wrong.

So, my basic question is: What is ergativity?

From there:

– What are some examples of it in different languages?

– And what is its linguistic counterpart called, as in, if a language does not display ergativity, what *does* it have?

You don’t have to explain it like I’m five, more like I’m that guy at work who’s approaching retirement age that saw you scroll TikTok once and now wants you to explain what “griddying” is. I’m 27, but I think that method might be best.

Thanks!

In: 13

Answer 1

A transitive verb need two nouns or pronouns. We conventionally call these the subject of the sentence and the object of the sentence. “The boy threw the ball.”

An intransitive verb only needs a single noun. In English, this single noun that goes with the verb behaves the same as the subject of the transitive verb, and the sentence has no object. “The boy ran.”

In an ergative language, the one noun that goes with in intransitive verb behaves the same as the object of transitive verb instead.

Languages like English are classified as “nominative-accusative” languages, and the subject of the transitive verb and the subject of the intransitive verb are both nominative cases and the object of the transitive verb is accusative case. Other languages are classified as “ergative-absolutive” languages and the subject of the transitive verb is ergative case and the object of the transitive verb and the subject of the intransitive verb are both absolutive case.