The syntactic pivot is the verb argument around which sentences "revolve", in a given language. Linguistic Typology is an international Peer-reviewed journal in the field of Linguistic typology, founded in 1997 Morphological typology is a way of classifying the languages of the world (see Linguistic typology) that groups languages according to their common morphological structures In morphological typology (in linguistics an isolating language (also analytic language) is any Language in which words are composed of A synthetic language, in Linguistic typology, is a Language with a high Morpheme -per- word ratio Polysynthetic languages are highly Synthetic languages ie languages in which words are composed of many Morphemes Definition The degree of For fusion in Word formation, see Compound (linguistics. A fusional language (also called inflecting language) is a An agglutinative language is a Language that uses Agglutination extensively most Words are formed by joining Morphemes together Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words In Linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of Transitive verbs and those of Intransitive A nominative-accusative Language (or simply accusative language) is one that marks the direct object of Transitive verbs distinguishing them An ergative-absolutive Language (or simply ergative language is a language that treats the argument (" subject " of an Intransitive Austronesian alignment, commonly known as the Philippine- or Austronesian -type voice system, is a typologically unusual Morphosyntactic alignment An active-stative language, or active language for short is one in which the sole argument of an Intransitive verb is sometimes marked in the same way A tripartite language, also called an ergative-accusative language, is one that treats the subject of an intransitive verb the subject of a transitive verb and the object A direct-inverse language is a language where clauses with transitive verbs can be expressed either using a direct or an inverse construction In Generative grammar, (in particular Government and binding theory and the Standard Theory of Transformational Grammar a theta role or θ-role is the In Linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the different ways in which languages arrange the constituents of their sentences relative to each other and the systematic In Linguistics, a VO language is a language in which the Verb typically comes before the object (thus including SVO, VOS and In Linguistic typology, subject-verb-object ( SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first the Verb second and the object Verb Subject Object ( VSO) is a term in Linguistic typology. It represents one type of languages when classifying languages according to the sequence of these In Linguistic typology, Verb Object Subject or Verb Object Agent - commonly used in its abbreviated form VOS or VOA - represents the language-classification In Linguistics, an OV language is a language in which the object comes before the Verb. In Linguistic typology, Subject Object Verb (SOV is the type of languages in which the subject, object, and Verb of a sentence appear or usually Object Subject Verb (OSV or Object Agent Verb (OAV is one of the permutations of expression used in Linguistic typology. Object Verb Subject (OVS or Object Verb Agent (OVA is one of the Permutations of expression used in Linguistic typology, although it is rare among Time Manner Place (TMP describes one possible ordering of Adpositional phrases in sentences Place Manner Time is a term used in Linguistic typology to state the general order of Adpositional phrases in a language's sentences "to the store by car A syntactic verb argument, in Linguistics, is a Phrase that appears in a relationship with the Verb in a Clause. In Linguistics, a sentence is a grammatical unit of one or more words bearing minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it often preceded and followed A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them This usually means the following:

• If the verb has more than zero arguments, then one argument is the syntactic pivot. For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs.
• If the verb agrees with at least one of its arguments, then it agrees with the syntactic pivot.
• In coordinated propositions, in languages where an argument can be left out, the omitted argument is the syntactic pivot.

The first two characteristics have to do with simple morphosyntax, and from them it is quite obvious the syntactic pivot in English (and most other European languages) is what we call the subject. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States According to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle, every sentence can be divided in two main constituents, one being the subject of the sentence and the An English verb cannot lack a subject (even in the imperative mood, the subject is implied to be "you" and is not ambiguous or unspecified), and cannot have just a direct object and no subject; and (at least in the present tense, and for the verb to be) it agrees partially with the subject. The imperative mood is a Grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests An object in Grammar is a Sentence element and part of the sentence predicate.

The third point deserves an explanation. Consider the following sentence:

I shot the deer and killed it.

There are two coordinated propositions, and the second proposition lacks an explicit subject, but since the subject is the syntactic pivot, then the second proposition is assumed to have the same subject as the first one. One cannot do this with a direct object (in English). The result would be either ungrammatical or with a different meaning:

*I shot the deer and I killed [it].

The syntactic pivot is a feature of the morphosyntactic alignment of the language. In Linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of Transitive verbs and those of Intransitive In nominative-accusative languages the syntactic pivot is the so-called "subject" (the argument marked with the nominative case). A nominative-accusative Language (or simply accusative language) is one that marks the direct object of Transitive verbs distinguishing them The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other In ergative-absolutive languages the syntactic pivot may be the argument marked with the absolutive case, but this is not always so, since ergative languages are often not "pure" and show a mixed behaviour (e. An ergative-absolutive Language (or simply ergative language is a language that treats the argument (" subject " of an Intransitive In Ergative-absolutive languages the absolutive ( abbreviated ABS) is the Grammatical case used to mark both the subject of an g. ergative morphology and accusative syntax).

Languages with a passive voice construction may resort to it in order to allow the default syntactic pivot to shift its semantic role (from agent to patient) in a coordinated proposition:

He worked hard and was awarded a prize. In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified

Bibliography

• Anderson, Stephen. (1976). On the notion of subject in ergative languages. In C. Li. (Ed. ), Subject and topic (pp. 1-24). New York: Academic Press.
• Dixon, R. M. W. (1994). Ergativity. Cambridge University Press.
• Foley, William; & Van Valin, Robert. (1984). Functional syntax and universal grammar. Cambridge University Press.
• Plank, Frans. (Ed. ). (1979). Ergativity: Towards a theory of grammatical relations. London: Academic Press.