ACTIVE STATIVE ALIGNMENT
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Morphosyntactic alignmentIn linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the grammatical relationship between arguments—specifically, between the two arguments (in English, subject and object) of transitive verbs like the dog chased the cat, and the single argument of intransitive verbs like the cat ran away. English has a subject, which merges the more active argument of transitive verbs with the argument of intransitive verbs, leaving the object in transitive verbs distinct; other languages may have different strategies, or, rarely, make no distinction at all. Distinctions may be made morphologically (through case and agreement), syntactically (through word order), or both.
Ergative–absolutive alignmentIn linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the subject of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the subject of a transitive verb. Examples include Basque, Georgian, Mayan, Tibetan, Sumerian, and certain Indo-European languages (such as Pashto and the Kurdish languages and many Indo-Aryan languages like Hindustani). It has also been attributed to the Semitic modern Aramaic (also called Neo-Aramaic) languages. Ergative languages are classified into two groups: those that are morphologically ergative but syntactically behave as accusative (for instance, Basque, Pashto and Urdu) and those that, on top of being ergative morphologically, also show ergativity in syntax. Languages that belong to the former group are more numerous than those to the latter. The ergative-absolutive alignment is in contrast to nominative–accusative alignment, which is observed in English and most other Indo-European languages, where the single argument of an intransitive verb ("She" in the sentence "She walks") behaves grammatically like the agent (subject) of a transitive verb ("She" in the sentence "She finds it") but different from the object of a transitive verb ("her" in the sentence "He likes her"). When ergative–absolutive alignment is coded by grammatical case, the case used for the single argument of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb is the absolutive, and the case used for the agent of a transitive verb is the ergative. In nominative-accusative languages, the case for the single argument of an intransitive verb and the agent of a transitive verb is the nominative, while the case for the direct object of a transitive verb is the accusative. Many languages have ergative–absolutive alignment only in some parts of their grammar (e.g., in the case marking of nouns), but nominative-accusative alignment in other parts (e.g., in the case marking of pronouns, or in person agreement). This is known as split ergativity.
Active–stative alignmentIn linguistic typology, active–stative alignment (also split intransitive alignment or semantic alignment) is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the sole argument ("subject") of an intransitive clause (often symbolized as S) is sometimes marked in the same way as an agent of a transitive verb (that is, like a subject such as "I" or "she" in English) but other times in the same way as a direct object (such as "me" or "her" in English). Languages with active–stative alignment are often called active languages. The case or agreement of the intransitive argument (S) depends on semantic or lexical criteria particular to each language. The criteria tend to be based on the degree of volition, or control over the verbal action exercised by the participant. For example, if one tripped and fell, an active–stative language might require one to say the equivalent of "fell me." To say "I fell" would mean that the person had done it on purpose, such as taking a fall in boxing. Another possibility is empathy; for example, if someone's dog were run over by a car, one might say the equivalent of "died her." To say "she died" would imply that the person was not affected emotionally. If the core arguments of a transitive clause are termed A (agent of a transitive verb) and P (patient of a transitive verb), active–stative languages can be described as languages that align intransitive S as S = P/O∗∗ ("fell me") or S = A ("I fell"), depending on the criteria described above. Active–stative languages contrast with accusative languages such as English that generally align S as S = A, and with ergative languages that generally align S as S = P/O. From this we can deduce that there are two types of S in Active languages. On the other hand, in Ergative languages some types of O/P can be O/P=A, and in this respect, we have to consider that there are also two types of O in Ergative languages. Active languages can be said to be a phenomenon at the intersection of these complex issues.
Stative verbIn linguistics, a stative verb is a verb that describes a state of being, in contrast to a dynamic verb, which describes an action. The difference can be categorized by saying that stative verbs describe situations that are static, or unchanging throughout their entire duration, and dynamic verbs describe processes that entail change over time. Many languages distinguish between the two types in terms of how they can be used grammatically.
Patient (grammar)In linguistics, the grammatical patient, also called the target or undergoer, is a semantic role representing the participant of a situation upon whom an action is carried out, or the thematic relation such a participant has with an action. Sometimes, theme and patient are used to mean the same thing. When used to mean different things, patient describes a receiver that changes state ("I crushed the car") and theme describes something that does not change state ("I have the car"). By that definition, stative verbs act on themes, and dynamic verbs act on patients.
Natchez languageThe Natchez language is the ancestral language of the Natchez people who historically inhabited Mississippi and Louisiana, and who now mostly live among the Muscogee and Cherokee peoples in Oklahoma. The language is considered to be either unrelated to other indigenous languages of the Americas or distantly related to the Muskogean languages. The phonology of Natchez is atypical in having voicing distinction in its sonorants but not in its obstruents; it also has a wide range of morphophonemic processes. Morphologically, it has complex verbal inflection and a relatively simple nominal inflection (the ergative case marks nouns in transitive clauses), and its syntax is characterized by active-stative alignment and subject-object-verb word order (or more accurately Agent-Object-Verb and Subject-Verb). Natchez storytellers used a specific register, "cannibal speech" to impersonate cannibals, a recurring character in Natchez oral literature. The Natchez chiefdom was destroyed in the 1730s by the French; Natchez speakers took refuge among their neighbors and accompanied them when the U.S. federal government forcibly removed them to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) on the Trail of Tears. That meant that Natchez speakers were frequently multilingual in Muscogee, Cherokee, Natchez, and English. The language gradually became endangered, and it is now generally considered extinct in spite of recent revitalization efforts. Much of what is known of the language comes mostly from its last fluent speakers, Watt Sam and Nancy Raven, who worked with linguist Mary R. Haas in the 1930s. The Natchez nation is now working to revive it as a spoken language. As of 2011, field linguists from the community were being trained in documentation techniques, and six members of the Natchez tribe in Oklahoma now speak the language, out of about 10,000.
Diathesis alternationIn linguistics, diathesis alternation or verb alternation occurs when the same verb can be used in different subcategorization frames or with different valency, as in "Fred ate the pizza" (where ate is transitive, with object "the pizza") vs. "Fred ate" (where ate is intransitive, with no object). The two usages usually have a slight difference in meaning. Using a single verb, one can also change the position of a phrase's arguments which may or may not change the sentence's meaning as well. It is a hard problem for theoretical linguistics how to encode constraints on the diathesis alternation of a specific verb to a lexicon. It is also claimed that the manner in which verbs undergo diathesis alternation can be used to identify the semantic class they belong to e.g. in a machine learning task.
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