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Ergativity
Abstract
Although there is only one ergative language in Europe (Basque), perhaps one-quarter of the world's languages show ergative properties, and pose considerable difficulties for many current linguistic theories. R. M. W. Dixon here provides a full survey of the various types of ergativity, looking at the ways they interrelate, their semantic bases and their role in the organisation of discourse. Ergativity stems from R. M. W. Dixon's long-standing interest in the topic, and in particular from his seminal 1979 paper in Language. It includes a rich collection of data from a large number of the world's languages. Comprehensive, clear and insightful, it will be the standard point of reference for all those interested in the topic.
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Citations
Cited by
Hopper, P. J., & Traugott, E. C. (2003) · doi:10.1017/cbo9781139165525 · Cited by 2,135
Ahearn, L. M. (2001) · Annual Review of Anthropology · doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.30.1.109 · Cited by 2,083
On Understanding Grammar: Revised edition
Givón, T. (2018) · John Benjamins Publishing Company eBooks · doi:10.1075/z.213 · Cited by 1,753
Chang, F., Dell, G. S., & Bock, K. (2006) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.113.2.234 · Cited by 984
Autonomy and Functionalist Linguistics
Croft, W. (1995) · Language · doi:10.2307/416218 · Cited by 462
Metadata
- Authors
- Dixon, R. M. W.
- Venue
- Cambridge University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Published
- 1994-06-02
- OpenAlex
- W435038712
- Cited by
- 1,126
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 10.87
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Ergativity. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1017/cbo9780511611896
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- Dixon, R. M. W. (1994). Ergativity. Cambridge University Press eBooks. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511611896
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
