Universal #263

Legacy number: 264

 Number  263
 Original  Among the morphological frequentalia of ergativity one may mention: the morphological category of words that are syntactically connected with nouns (verbs, adjectives, pronouns); the opposition of alienable and inalienable possession with nouns; number agreement of transitive verbs with direct object and of intransitive verbs with subject (or compensating it by suppletion of the verb stem).
 Standardized  IF alignment is predominantly ergative, THEN there tend to be: (i) a special morphological category of words syntactically connected with nouns (i.e., attributive forms of verbs, adjectives, pronouns); (ii) an opposition of alienable and inalienable possession; (iii) number agreement of transitive verbs with direct object and of intransitive verbs with subject (perhaps expressed by suppletion of the verb stem).
 Keywords  alignment, ergative, attribution, possession, alienable, inalienable, agreement, number, transitive verb, intransitive verb, subject, direct object, suppletion
 Domain  inflection, syntax
 Type  implication
 Status  achronic
 Quality  statistical
 Basis  different language families surveyed in Klimov 1973
 Source  Klimov 1973: 117

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Discussion
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
1. Nichols (Nichols 1992: 123) claims that no correlation emerges between an inclusive/exclusive opposition and any typological feature. This is a strong geographical correlation. "Klimov 1977 found that stative-active languages have inclusive/exclusive pronouns more often than other alignment types, but that correlation is artifactual: most of the stative-active languages come from the New World and the Pacific, where inclusive/exclusive oppositions are relatively frequent in languages of all alignment types." "There is also a strong genetic correlation: pronouns and pronoun categories tend to be conservative in families. ... The concrete propensity of an individual family to have an inclusive/exclusive opposition, however, is presumably determined by its earlier genetic connections and may have an areal origin in diffusion, but appears unconnected with any typological factor ..."

2. Klimov being a "stadialist", these implications are to be seen as characterizing developmental stages, with the ergative stage developing from the active stage and developing into the accusative stage.