Examples
An example of split ergativity conditioned by tense and aspect is found in the Hindi-Urdu language, which has an ergative case on subjects in the perfective aspect for transitive verbs in the active voice, while in other aspects (habitual, progressive) subjects appear in the nominative case. Example sentences for Hindi-Urdu are:
-
लड़का किताब ख़रीदता है laṛkā kitāb xarīdtā hai boy-Msg. book.Fsg. buy--Msg be..3sg
- "The boy buys a book."
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लड़के-ने किताब ख़रीदी laṛke-ne kitāb xarīdī boy.Msg- book.Fsg. buy-.Fsg
- "The boy bought a book."
In the first sentence, the verb in present tense has the masculine ending -ā, agreeeing with laṛkā (boy). But in the second sentence, the verb in past tense has the feminine ending -ī, agreeing with the feminine noun kitāb (book). "Boy" here appears as laṛke-ne, literally "by the boy".
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