A Year in Language, Day 135: Concept: Case Alignment
Case alignment is a method by which linguists categorize languages, specifically in how they mark subjects and objects, grammatical elements collectively called “core arguments”.
You may think you have a good grasp on whats a subject and whats an object. I’m here to tell you you probably don’t. Most people think of subjects as things that do or perform the action of the verb, and objects as things that undergo the action. But its not true. In English we have plenty verbs that show experience or change of state, things one cannot really “do” with any kind of agency (ex. feel, sleep, change, etc.) and of course we have passive constructions as well where the subject is explicitly not active. All subject actually means is a specific grammatical function. We know what subjects are because subjects must fall in certain places in sentences and have effects on other parts of speech (like verbs or case markers). Thus different languages can assign the roles differently.
To understand the different types of case alignment its important to understand the difference in types of core arguments, of which there are at least 3, which an astute reader will notice is one more than “subject” and “object”. If you consider a sentence like “Jennifer eats steaks” its readily apparent that there is a subject and an object, and if either were lacking it would need to be implied or replaced. This is what we call a “transitive” verb, meaning it needs two core arguments. Lets call the first one, the slot occupied by “Jennifer”, “A”, for “agent” (I’m saving subject for later). Lets call the other one, the slot occupied by steaks” “O” for object. There is, as those of you who paid attention in English class may know, another type of verb: “intransitive”. Intransitive verbs take one and only one core argument. A parallel English example would be “Jennifer dines”. I can add a prepositional statement to let you know what she dined ~on~, but I can’t simply add an object, “Jennifer dined steaks” is not a correct sentence. Let’s call this argument, the subject of an intransitive verb, “S”, for “subject”. So to recap we have S, the subject of an intransitive verb, A, the subject of a transitive verb, and O, the object of a transitive verb.
The most common case alignment is called Nominative/Accusative, or just Accusative for short. These are the names given to the subject and object case in languages with this alignment. Accusative languages group S and A together, marking both as “subjects” and differentiates O as an “object”. English, Latin, Japanese, and Swahili are all Accusative languages.
The second most common is Absolutive/Ergative, or Ergative for short, once again named after the cases. Ergative language mark S and O together (the absolutive case) and mark A differently (ergative). Though second most common after Accusative, Ergative languages only compromise less than a sixth of all languages, and many exhibit split-ergativity, wherein they mark like an Ergative language in some situations, and like an Accusative language in others. Basque and Inuktitut are Ergative languages.
Next up are Active-Stative languages, also sometimes called semantic alignment. In these languages determining something as subject or object is a matter of semantic distinction; objects are generally core arguments that lack agency and undergo the action, subjects are core arguments that have agency and enact the action. There are two varieties, Split-S and Fluid-S. In Split-S languages verbs carry with them grammatical requirements for if they take a subject or object (i.e. “dine” must always have a subject marked argument, “feel” must always have an object marked argument, etc.) while in Fluid-S languages the marking is, well, fluid, it can change to show shifts in agency or volition (i.e. “fell me” means I fell by accident, “I fell” means I purposefully threw myself on the ground). Guarani is a Fluid-S language, and Cherokee is Split-S.
Austronesian alignment is called so because only Austronesian languages have it, notably the Philippine languages, Formosan Languages, and Malagasy. This alignment has elements of Accusative and Ergative alignment, shifting between the two depending on the agreement of the verb, which is marked not to a subject but the topic of the sentence. I’d go into more detail but frankly its complicated and this post is bloated as is.
There are a smattering of other unique alignments, direct for when S, A, and O, remain undistinguished, tripartite for when all three are marked distinctly, as in Nez Perce, and there is even a transitive alignment, claimed to exist in only one language, Rushani, and even then only in the past tense, which marks A and O alike, leaving S separate. A fascinating thing to consider is this: why do all these alignments exist, and furthermore if there are 3 types of core arguments why are more languages not tripartite? Once again it’s important to realize that for all its variety languages love efficiency. The arguments of a transitive verb never coexist with the argument of an intransitive verb, thus you don’t actually ~need~ to note the difference. All you have to do is make sure you’re A’s and O’s can be told apart, and then lump S into one of the two. What’s most interesting to me is this: most intransitive verbs have semantically passive subjects i.e. they are predominantly full of words with experiencer and change of state type meanings. Thus it seems to me that it’s more natural to dump S in with the similarly passive O. And yet the languages that do that (Ergative) are massively outnumbered by Accusative languages, which account for 90% of spoken languages, which do just the opposite. Why? I just don’t know.