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 of a transitive verb each in different ways. 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 direct-inverse language is a language where clauses with transitive verbs can be expressed either using a direct or an inverse construction The syntactic pivot is the Verb argument around which sentences "revolve" in a given Language. 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 If the language has morphological case, the arguments are marked in this way:

• the subject of a transitive verb takes the ergative case
• the subject of an intransitive verb takes the intransitive case
• the object of a transitive verb takes the accusative case

Languages lacking case inflections may distinguish these roles with distinct word order. In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the The ergative case is the Grammatical case that identifies the subject of a Transitive verb in Ergative-absolutive languages In such languages The intransitive case is a Grammatical case used in some languages to mark the subject of an Intransitive verb, but not used with Transitive verbs The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive

Tripartite languages are rare. Some examples are Wangkumara, Nez Percé and Kalaw Lagaw Ya. Wangkumara or Wanggumara is an Australian Aboriginal language from the Karnic subgroup of the widespread Pama-Nyungan languages family and Nez Perce (also spelled Nez Percé; nɛzˈpɝs is a Sahaptian language related to the several dialects of Sahaptin (note the spellings -ian Kala Lagaw Ya (correctly Kalaw Lagaw Ya place+gen speech several other names see below is a language spoken on all the western and central Torres Strait Islands Several constructed languages, especially engineered languages, use a tripartite case system or tripartite adposition system. A constructed or artificial language known colloquially or informally as a conlang is a Language whose Phonology, Grammar Engineered languages (sometimes abbreviated to engilangs or engelangs) are Constructed languages devised to test or prove some hypothesis about how languages

See also

Split ergativity