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Ergative-absolutive case

Concept
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Case system marking subjects of transitive verbs differently from others

Detailed Definition
A grammatical case system marking subjects of transitive verbs differently from subjects of intransitive verbs and objects of transitive verbs, found in languages like Basque, Georgian, and Dyirbal. For poets, this linguistic concept affects how agency and action are structured in different languages, becoming particularly important in translation work where English's nominative-accusative system must be rendered into or from ergative-absolutive languages.
Example
Example in poetry:
Case marking distinguishing transitive subjects from intransitive; Grammatical systems splitting subject treatment; Languages like Georgian using ergative case
Additional Notes
Grammatical concept from linguistics relevant to understanding how different languages express agency. Important for poets working in translation or with multilingual themes.
Also Known As
Ergative case Ergative system Transitive-intransitive split Ergative alignment
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