Ergative vs. absolutive case

Language cases

List of language cases

Abessive case

Ablative case

Absolutive case

Accusative case

Adessive case

Allative case

Comitative case

Dative case

Dedative case

Elative case

Ergative case

Essive case

Genitive case

Illative case

Inessive case

Instrumental case

Locative case

Nominative case

Oblique case

Partitive case

Possessive case

Postpositional case

Prepositional case

Prolative case

Terminative case

Translative case

Vocative case

Declension

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The ergative case is used, in ergative-absolutive languages which inflect for case, to mark the subject of a transitive verb.

The absolutive case, in the same context, is used to mark

• the subject of an intransitive verb;
• the object of a transitive verb.

The ergative case is typically marked (most salient), while the absolutive case is unmarked.

See also: Morphosyntactic alignment.