Nominative–absolutive alignment

In linguistic typology, nominative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the sole argument of an intransitive verb shares some coding properties with the agent argument of a transitive verb and other coding properties with the patient argument ('direct object') of a transitive verb. It is typically observed in a subset of the clause types of a given language (that is, the languages which have nominative–absolutive clauses also have clauses which show other alignment patterns such as nominative-accusative and/or ergative-absolutive).

The languages for which nominative–absolutive clauses have been described include the Cariban languages Panare (future, desiderative, and nonspecific aspect clauses) and Katxuyana (imperfective clauses), the Northern Jê languages Canela (evaluative, progressive, continuous, completive, and negated clauses), Kĩsêdjê (progressive, continuous, and completive clauses, as well as future and negated clauses with non-pronominal arguments), and Apinajé (progressive, continuous, and negated clauses), as well as in the main clauses of the Tuparian languages (Makurap, Wayoró, Tuparí, Sakurabiat, and Akuntsú).^{: 191 : 99}