MorphoSyntactic Alignment MorphoSyntactic Alignment It is a grammatical

Morpho-Syntactic Alignment

Morpho-Syntactic Alignment • It is a grammatical relationship between the arguments of transitive verb and the single argument of intransitive verb, usually conveyed by using grammatical cases. • Grammatical relation refers to the functional relationships between the constituents in a clause such as subject, object etc. • (1) Nominative-Accusative Alignment: the Subject of an intransitive verb is treated like the Agent argument of transitive verbs, with the Object argument distinct. Japanese example kodomo-ga tsuita ‘The child arrived’ otoko-ga kodomo-o mita ‘The man saw the child’

• (2) Ergative-Absolutive Alignment: an intransitive argument is treated like a transitive Object argument. An agent is marked with an ergative case while the Subject argument of an intransitive verb and the Object argument of a transitive verb are left unmarked or sometimes marked with an absolutive case. Basque example gizona- etorri da ‘The man arrived’ gizona-k mutila- ikusi du ‘The man saw the boy’

• (3) Split-Ergative Alignment: it is found when in different grammatical contexts the Object of a transitive verb of perfective aspect is treated like the Subject of an intransitive verb. Urdu example la. Rka aata hei ‘The man arrives’ la. Rke ne aadmi ko dekha ‘The man saw the boy’