unergatív

Unergative is a linguistic term referring to a type of ergative-absolutive alignment where the subject of a transitive verb is marked differently from the subject of an intransitive verb, and the object of a transitive verb is marked the same as the subject of an intransitive verb. This contrasts with typical ergative languages, where the subject of a transitive verb is marked in the ergative case, the object of a transitive verb is marked in the absolutive case, and the subject of an intransitive verb is also marked in the absolutive case.

In an unergative system, the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb share a case marking, often called the absolutive or nominative. The subject of a transitive verb is marked with a different case, typically called the ergative. This alignment is less common than the standard ergative-absolutive or nominative-accusative systems.

For example, in a hypothetical unergative language, a sentence like "The dog runs" might have "dog" marked in the absolutive case. A sentence like "The man sees the dog" would mark "man" in the ergative case and "dog" in the absolutive case. This pattern distinguishes unergative alignment from other case-marking systems in linguistics. Some scholars classify languages with this specific alignment as a subtype of ergative languages, while others may treat it as a distinct grammatical phenomenon.