Tripartite language

Encyclopedia : T : TR : TRI : Tripartite language

Linguistic typology
Morphological
Analytic
Synthetic
Fusional
Agglutinative
Polysynthetic

Morphosyntactic
Alignment
Nominative-accusative
Ergative-absolutive
Active-stative
Tripartite
Direct-inverse system
Syntactic pivot
Theta role

Word Order
VO languages
Agent Verb Object
Verb Agent Object
Verb Object Agent
OV languages
Agent Object Verb
Object Agent Verb
Object Verb Agent
Time Manner Place
Place Manner Time

A tripartite language, also called an ergative-accusative language, is one that marks the agent, experiencer, and patient verb arguments each in different ways. If the language has morphological case, the arguments are marked in this way:

the agent is marked with the ergative case
the experiencer is marked with the intransitive case
the patient is marked with the accusative case

In simpler terms, it distinguishes between the subject of an intransitive verb, the subject of a transitive verb and the object (of a transitive verb).

Languages lacking case inflections may indicate case with a fixed word order.

Tripartite languages are rare. Some examples are Indo-Aryan, Wangkumara, Nez Percé and Kalaw Lagaw Ya. Several constructed languages, especially engineered languages, use a tripartite case system or tripartite adposition system.

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