Pashto’s Split Ergativity

In the world of English grammar, the subject is a reliable friend. Consider these sentences:

• “I see the cat.”
• “I ran.”
• “I saw the cat.”

No matter the verb (transitive like “see” or intransitive like “run”), and no matter the tense (present or past), the person doing the action, “I”, remains grammatically unchanged. It’s the steadfast subject. This seems so fundamental that we rarely question it. But what if a language decided to rewrite the rules? What if the “doer” of the action had to change its costume depending on the tense?

Welcome to the mind-bending world of Pashto and its fascinating feature: split ergativity. In this system, the very definition of a “subject” seems to split in two, creating a grammatical landscape that is both elegant and wonderfully complex.

First, A Quick Look at “Normal”: The Nominative-Accusative System

Before we dive into the deep end, let’s put a name to the system we know and love in English. It’s called a nominative-accusative alignment. It sounds technical, but the concept is simple and revolves around how we treat the “doer” of an action.

In this system, the subject of any verb gets the same grammatical marking.

• Subject of an intransitive verb (a verb with no object): She arrived.
• Subject of a transitive verb (a verb with an object): She read the book.

In both cases, “She” is the subject and is in the nominative case. The noun receiving the action, however, gets a different marking: the accusative case. We see this with pronouns: “She saw him” (not “She saw he”).

The core rule is: The doer is king. It always gets the special nominative case, setting it apart from the object.

Pashto in the Present: A Familiar Face

If you start learning Pashto by focusing on the present tense, you might be fooled into thinking it works just like English. Pashto, in its present and future tenses, follows the same nominative-accusative pattern.

Let’s look at some examples. We’ll use the name Zmaray (which means “lion”).

1. Intransitive Verb (no object):

Zmaray khene.
(زمرے خاندي)
Zmaray-NOM laughs.

Here, Zmaray is the subject, in the nominative case. Simple enough.

2. Transitive Verb (with an object):

Zmaray mangay wahi.
(زمرے مڼه وهي)
Zmaray-NOM apple-ACC hits/eats.

Again, Zmaray is the doer, the subject in the nominative case. The apple, mangay, is the object and takes a different form (the accusative, which in this case looks the same as the nominative for this noun, but is grammatically distinct). The verb wahi (hits/eats) agrees with the subject, Zmaray.

So far, so good. Pashto seems perfectly “normal.” But now, let’s switch to the past.

The Plot Twist: Pashto’s Past Tense and the Ergative System

This is where everything changes. When you form a past tense sentence with a transitive verb in Pashto, the grammatical roles flip into a completely different system: ergative-absolutive alignment.

Here’s how it works:

• The subject of an intransitive verb is in the absolutive case.
• The object of a transitive verb is also in the absolutive case.
• The subject of a transitive verb gets a special, marked case: the ergative case.

Instead of grouping the “doers” together like English does, an ergative system groups the subject of an “action-only” verb with the object of a “doer-and-receiver” verb. They are treated as the grammatically “unmarked” or default participants. The doer in a transitive sentence is the odd one out.

Let’s see it in action with our friend Zmaray.

1. Past Tense Intransitive Verb:

Zmaray wākhedə.
(زمرے وخندل)
Zmaray-ABS laughed.

Notice that Zmaray is now in the absolutive case (which looks identical to the nominative). This is our new baseline.

2. Past Tense Transitive Verb (Here comes the magic!):

Zmarayā manga wakhwara.
(زمرے مڼه وخوړه)
Zmaray-ERG apple-ABS ate.

Whoa! What just happened?

1. The Subject Changed: The doer, Zmaray, is now in the ergative case, marked by the -ā suffix. It’s no longer the “default” subject.
2. The Object Is the Star: The apple, manga, is in the absolutive case—the exact same case Zmaray was in when he laughed!
3. The Verb Agreement Flipped: This is the most shocking part for English speakers. The verb, wakhwara (ate), no longer agrees with the doer (Zmarayā). It agrees with the object, manga! If the apple were plural (“apples” – mangey), the verb would change to become plural too, even though there’s still only one person eating. It’s as if in English we said, “The apple was eaten by me” but treated “apple” as the grammatical subject.

Putting It All Together: This is Split Ergativity

Pashto isn’t purely nominative-accusative, nor is it purely ergative-absolutive. It’s both. It “splits” its alignment based on a grammatical feature—in this case, tense and aspect (past vs. non-past).

A Simple Cheat Sheet

• In the Present Tense (Nominative-Accusative):
  • The doer is the subject.
  • The verb agrees with the doer.
  • Example: “I see him.”
• In the Past Tense (Ergative-Absolutive):
  • With transitive verbs, the doer is in the ergative case.
  • The receiver of the action is in the absolutive case.
  • The verb agrees with the receiver (the object)!
  • Example: “By me, he was seen.” (A rough structural equivalent)

Why on Earth Does This Happen? A Glimpse into Language History

This system might seem random, but there’s a historical logic to it. Many linguists believe that the ergative construction in Pashto (and other Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi) evolved from an older passive participle construction.

Think about the English sentence: “The letter was written by me.”

In this passive sentence, “the letter” is the grammatical subject, and the verb “was written” agrees with it. The original doer, “me”, is pushed into a secondary role, introduced by the preposition “by.”

The Pashto past tense works in a strikingly similar way. The old phrase that meant “by Zmaray” became grammaticalized over centuries into the new ergative subject, Zmarayā. The old subject, “the apple”, kept its primary grammatical status, which we now call the absolutive. And the verb, having always agreed with “the apple”, just kept doing what it had always done.

So, what feels like a sudden flip-flop is actually the ghost of an ancient passive construction, now fully integrated as the primary way to express past actions.

A Challenge to Our Assumptions

Studying features like Pashto’s split ergativity does more than just teach us about one language. It fundamentally challenges our assumptions about how grammar is “supposed” to work. It shows us that concepts we take for granted—like the subject—are not universal constants but flexible roles that can be defined in vastly different ways.

The next time you say a simple past-tense sentence like “She wrote it”, take a moment to appreciate the hidden complexity that other languages pack into that same idea. It’s a beautiful reminder that human language is not a monolith, but a rich, diverse, and endlessly surprising tapestry.