Nominative–absolutive language

Nominative–absolutive language
Linguistic typology
Morphological
Isolating
Synthetic
Polysynthetic
Fusional
Agglutinative
Morphosyntactic
Alignment
Accusative
Ergative
Split ergative
Philippine
Active–stative
Tripartite
Marked nominative
Inverse marking
Syntactic pivot
Theta role
Word Order
VO languages
Subject–verb–object
Verb–subject–object
Verb–object–subject
OV languages
Subject–object–verb
Object–subject–verb
Object–verb–subject
Time–manner–place
Place–manner–time
This box: view · talk · edit

A nominative–absolutive language, also called a marked nominative language, is a language with an unusual morphosyntactic alignment similar to, and often considered a subtype of, a nominative–accusative alignment. In a prototypical nominative–accusative language with a grammatical case system, like Latin, the object of a verb is marked for accusative case, while the subject of the verb may or may not be marked for nominative case. The nominative, whether or not marked morphologically, is also used as the citation form of the noun. In a marked nominative system, on the other hand, it is the nominative case alone that is marked morphologically, and it is the unmarked accusative case that is used as the citation form of the noun. Because this resembles an absolutive case, it is often called a nominative–absolutive system.

Marked nominative languages are relatively rare. They are only well documented in two regions of the world: in northeast Africa, where they occur in several branches of the Cushitic and Omotic families of Afro-Asiatic, as well as in the Surmic and Nilotic languages of the Eastern Sudanic family; and in the southwestern United States and adjoining parts of Mexico, where they are characteristic of the Yuman family. Other languages interpreted by some authors as having a marked nominative system include other Afro-Asiatic languages such as some Berber tongues, Igbo, and Aymara.

In Yuman and many of the Cushitic languages, however, the nominative is not always marked, for reasons which are not known; these may therefore not be a strict case system, but rather reflect discourse patterns or other non-semantic parameters. However, the Yuman language Havasupai is reported to have a purely syntactic case system, with a suffix marking all subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs, but not of the copula; in the Nilotic language Datooga the system is also reported to be purely syntactic.

As in many Nilotic languages, Datooga case is marked by tone. The absolutive case has the unpredictable tone of the citation form of the noun, whereas the nominative is marked by a characteristic tone which obliterates this lexical tone. (The tone is high for words of three syllables or less; for words with four or more syllables, the ends of the word have high tone, with a low tone in the middle of the word.) The nominative is used for subjects following the verb; the absolutive with the copula, with subjects in focus position before the verb, and in all other situations.

See also

References

  • Roland Kießling (2007) "The 'marked nominative' in Datooga", Journal of African languages and linguistics, vol. 28, no2, pp. 149–191
  • Hinton, Leanne (1984) Havasupai songs : a linguistic perspective
  • The World Atlas of Language Structures Online[1]

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Nominative–accusative language — Nominative accusative alignment Linguistic typology Morphological Isolating Synthetic …   Wikipedia

  • Ergative-absolutive language — An ergative absolutive language (or simply ergative language) is a language that treats the argument ( subject ) of an intransitive verb like the object of a transitive verb but distinctly from the agent ( subject ) of a transitive verb. Ergative …   Wikipedia

  • Wagiman language — language name=Wagiman familycolor=Australian region=Pine Creek, Northern Territory, Australia speakers=10 (2000) fam1=Gunwinyguan iso2=aus iso3=waqWagiman (also spelled Wageman , Wakiman , Wogeman ) is a near extinct indigenous Australian… …   Wikipedia

  • Nominative case — The nominative case (abbreviated nom) is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments.… …   Wikipedia

  • Tsez language — Tsez цезяс мец / cezyas mec Pronunciation [t͡sɛzˈjas mɛt͡s] Spoken in Russia Region Southern Dagestan …   Wikipedia

  • Active-stative language — An active stative language, or active language for short, is one in which the sole argument of an intransitive verb is sometimes marked in the same way as the agent of a transitive verb (that is, like a subject in English), and sometimes in the… …   Wikipedia

  • Greenlandic language — language name=Greenlandic familycolor=Eskimo Aleut states=Greenland, Denmark region=North America speakers=approximately 54,000 fam2=Inuit nation=Greenland agency=Oqaasileriffik ( [http://www.oqaasileriffik.gl/] ) iso1=kl|iso2=kal|iso3=kalThe… …   Wikipedia

  • Bunun language — language name=Bunun familycolor=Austronesian fam2=Formosan iso2=map iso3=bnn states=Taiwan region= speakers=38,000 nation=officially recognized minority language of TaiwanThe Bunun language (布農語) is spoken by the Bunun people of Taiwan. It… …   Wikipedia

  • Berta language — language name=Berta states=Sudan, Ethiopia region=Benishangul Gumuz speakers=146,799 familycolor=Nilo Saharan iso2=ssa|iso3=wtiThe Berta language is spoken by the group of the same name (Bertha or Berta people) in Sudan and Ethiopia, and is… …   Wikipedia

  • Marra language — Not to be confused with the Maran languages of the Pama–Nyungan family Marra Spoken in Australia Region Arnhem Land, Northern Territory Native speakers 15  (1991) Language family …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”