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Nominative／accusative systems usually seem very reasonable to speakers of Indo-European languages since most of these languages exhibit this kind of system.
The following examples from Yup'ik (alaska) illustrate another system for grouping S, A, and O.
In these examples the case marker "-aq" occurs on the S argument of an intransitive clause and O argument of a transitive clause.
If any morphological case marks A alone, it can be called the ERGATIVE case.
Similarly, any morphological case that marks both S and O can be termed the ABSOLUTE case.
This arrangement, known as an ERGATIVE ／ABSOLUTIVE system, is sporadic in European and African languages.
However, it is common in other areas of the world Ergativity occurs as a basic system for organizing grammatical relations in many languages of Australia, Central Asia,and the Americas.
It occurs as a partial case marking system in South Asia and in many other languages of the Americas.
Many Austronesian languages have also been claimed to exhibit this system.
In addition to morphological case marking on pronouns or full noun phrases, languages may manifest ergative／absolutive or nominative／accusative systems in person marking on verbs, and／or constituent order.
We have seen above that Quechua manifests a nominative／accusative system in case marking of noun phrases.
Quechua also manifests a nominative／accusative system for organizing grammatical relations in person marking on verbs.
In examples 28a, the third-person singular S of an intransitive verb is referred to by the suffix "-n".
In 28b, first-person S argument is expressed by the suffix "-a"(actually length on the final vowel of the root).
Examples 28c shows that suffix "-n" is also used for third-person A argument of transitive verbs.
Hence, A and S are treated morphologically alike by the person-making system of Quechua.
The fact that, in 28c, the first-person suffix for O arguments is "-ma" rather than "-a" illustrates that O and S are treated as different.
Again, this way of treating S and A alike and O differently constitutes a nominative／accusative system.
As might be expected, languages can also manifest an ergative ／absolutive GR system in person marking on verbs.
Yup'ik will again serve as our example of such a system:
In example 29a, the suffix "-nga" indicates a first-person singular S argument of an intransitive verc.
In 29b, the suffix "-q" marks the third-person s.
In 29c, the suffix "-nga" marks the first-person O argument of a transitive clause.
Since this is the same marker that is used for first-person S arguments, this suffix groups S and O together morphologically into an absolutive category.
The third-person singular A argument of a transitive clause is expressed by a suffix "-a" .
Since this suffix is different from the third-person S suffix, it can be said to identify ergative arguments.
Again, this treatment of S together with O as distinct from A constitutes an ergative／absolutive system.
Since constituent order is universally one major means of expressing grammatical relations, one might ask whether ergative／absolutive and／or nominative／accusative systems can be manifested in constituent order.
