Ergative alignment is associated with dependent marking , stative-active and hierarchical with head marking.
Standardized
IF alignment is ergative, THEN there will be dependent-marking, and vice versa. IF alignment is stative-active or hierarchical, THEN there will be head-marking, and vice versa.
1. Ergative clause alignment: S=O, A distinct.Stative-active: S1=A, S2=O, i.e., the language has two different kinds of intransitive verbs, one taking ordinary subject marking (or the same subject marking as used with transitive verbs) and the other taking a subject whose marking is the same as that of the direct object of a transitive. The choice of S1 or S2 is usually determined by the verb: “stative” verb take S2, “active” verbs S1.Hierarchical: Access to inflectional slots for subject and/or object is based on person, number and/or animacy rather than (or less than) on syntactic relations. The clearest example of the hierarchical type is Cree. The verb agrees in person and number with subject and object, but the person-number affixes do not distinguish subject and object; that is done only by what is known as direct vs. inverse marking of the verb. There is a hierarchical ranking of person categories: 2 person >1 person > 3 person. The verb takes direct marking when subject outranks object in this hierarchy, and inverse marking otherwise.2. Cf. ##257, 1590.
1. Ergative clause alignment: S=O, A distinct.Stative-active: S1=A, S2=O, i.e., the language has two different kinds of intransitive verbs, one taking ordinary subject marking (or the same subject marking as used with transitive verbs) and the other taking a subject whose marking is the same as that of the direct object of a transitive. The choice of S1 or S2 is usually determined by the verb: “stative” verb take S2, “active” verbs S1.Hierarchical: Access to inflectional slots for subject and/or object is based on person, number and/or animacy rather than (or less than) on syntactic relations. The clearest example of the hierarchical type is Cree. The verb agrees in person and number with subject and object, but the person-number affixes do not distinguish subject and object; that is done only by what is known as direct vs. inverse marking of the verb. There is a hierarchical ranking of person categories: 2 person >1 person > 3 person. The verb takes direct marking when subject outranks object in this hierarchy, and inverse marking otherwise.2. Cf. ##257, 1590.