Semantic correlates of the ergative/absolutive distinction

I present below a battery of semantic properties which absolutives (subjects of intransitive verbs and direct objects of transitive ones) have in common to the exclusion of subjects of transitive verbs. These properties are broadly characterized in terms of bondedness to the verb, thematic role, and control phenomena. In consequence we may regard languages in which case marking and verb agreement operate 'on an ergative/absolutive basis as codifying these semantic properties in surface. Following (by now) standard usage, we shall say that a linguistic phenomenon is ergative (or ergative/absolutive) if it treats subjects of intransitive predicates and direct objects of transitive ones in the same way to the distinction of subjects of transitive predicates. For example, a case-marking system is ergative if subjects of intransitive predicates, which we denote by Si? and direct objects (DO) of transitive predicates are marked in the same way AND the subject St of transitive predicates is casemarked differently. We use the term absolutive to refer to Sj and DO collectively. Ergative phenomena contrast with nominative (or nominative/accusative) ones in which subjects, both Sj and St, are treated identically to the distinction of DO. Thus a typical nominative/accusative casemarking system will mark Sj and St identically and use a distinct marker for DO. Ergative phenomena, in particular case marking, were once thought (ethnocentrically) to be rare and exotic. However, given the extensive descriptive work in recent years, we now know that ergative case-marking systems, as well as ergative verb agreement systems, enjoy a wide distribution across the world's languages, in terms of both areal and genetic distribution. See the extensive discussion in Plank (1979) and references cited there for corroboration of this point. A plausible explanation for the distribution of ergative phenomena Linguistics 22 (1984), 197,~223Γ 0024-39^4/0022-0197 $2.00 © Mouton-Publishers, Amsterdam