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ergative

E e

Transcription

    • US Pronunciation
    • US IPA
    • \ˈər-gə-tiv\
    • US Pronunciation
    • US IPA
    • \ˈər-gə-tiv\

Definitions of ergative word

  • noun ergative Relating to or denoting a case of nouns (in some languages, e.g., Basque and Eskimo) that identifies the subject of a transitive verb and is different from the case that identifies the subject of an intransitive verb. 1
  • adjective ergative An ergative verb is a verb that can be both transitive and intransitive, where the subject of the intransitive verb is the same as the object of the transitive verb. For example, 'open' is an ergative verb because you can say 'The door opened' or 'She opened the door'. 0
  • adjective ergative denoting a type of verb that takes the same noun as either direct object or as subject, with equivalent meaning. Thus, "fuse" is an ergative verb: "He fused the lights" and "The lights fused" have equivalent meaning 0
  • adjective ergative denoting a case of nouns in certain languages, for example, Inuktitut or Basque, marking a noun used interchangeably as either the direct object of a transitive verb or the subject of an intransitive verb 0
  • adjective ergative denoting a language that has ergative verbs or ergative nouns 0
  • noun ergative an ergative verb 0

Information block about the term

Parts of speech for Ergative

noun
adjective
verb
adverb
pronoun
preposition
conjunction
determiner
exclamation

ergative popularity

This term is known only to a narrow circle of people with rare knowledge. Only 7% of English native speakers know the meaning of this word.
According to our data about 68% of words is more used. This is a rare but used term. It occurs in the pages of specialized literature and in the speech of educated people.

ergative usage trend in Literature

This diagram is provided by Google Ngram Viewer

See also

Matching words

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