# Ergative Structures- Basic Grammar



## trampymouse

Hello, I'm currently doing a project which looks into usage of grammatical case, when I came across *'Ergative/Absolutive'* language structures (through Basque). Being a speaker/learner of nominative/accusative languages, the concept was quite difficult to me to grasp. I would be very grateful if someone with knowledge on this structure could explain it to me. 

I understand that the object of a transitive and subject of an intransitive verb is found in the absolutive case. And that the subject of a transitive verb is in ergative, which tends to be marked. And I've heard that the ergative tends to represent an "agent".

My question is: *Why does this happen and what exactly is an agent?*

Thank you.


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## Frank78

I can only comment on the "agent".

An agent in linguistics is simply speaking the _acting _person or thing in a sentence.

*Peter* writes a book. (active) = Peter is subject and agent
The book was written by *Peter. *(passive)= The book is the subject but Peter is again the agent.


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## rayloom

Did you check the wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergative–absolutive_language


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## trampymouse

rayloom said:


> Did you check the wikipedia entry:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergative–absolutive_language


 
I'm trying to avoid looking at Wikipedia articles since our project leader has explicitly forbidded it. I know that it's like cutting off your nose to spite your face, but citing wikipedia links gets no credit from the project. Thank you for your time anyway.


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## trampymouse

Frank78 said:


> I can only comment on the "agent".
> 
> An agent in linguistics is simply speaking the _acting _person or thing in a sentence.
> 
> *Peter* writes a book. (active) = Peter is subject and agent
> The book was written by *Peter. *(passive)= The book is the subject but Peter is again the agent.


 
Thank you, I had come across 'passive' as well but I didn't know that they were related in that way- that makes a lot of things clear. As for 'book' in the first sentence, is this the 'patient'? (Again, another word I've come across which I'm a little unsure about)


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## Frank78

trampymouse said:


> Thank you, I had come across 'passive' as well but I didn't know that they were related in that way- that makes a lot of things clear. As for 'book' in the first sentence, is this the 'patient'? (Again, another word I've come across which I'm a little unsure about)



Yes, book is the patient in both sentences. The patient is the person or thing which is affected by the action (verb) of the agent.


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