Open English Wordnet
(n)ergative-absolutive language, ergative languagea type of language that has an ergative case or in which the direct object of a transitive verb has the same form as the subject of an intransitive verb.“An ergative language maintains a syntactic or morphological equivalence (such as the same word order or grammatical case) for the object of a transitive verb and the single core argument of an intransitive verb, while treating the agent of a transitive verb differently.”