Although Cwarmin itself has very little in ways of ergativity, most languages of the same branch keep some split ergative features of slightly unusual kinds.
Possessed subjects
In Cwarmin, the possessive suffixes are nearly fully lost, with a few lexicalized retentions - both adverbs and nouns - where they have no function, as well as the reflexively possessed object case. In Proto-Cwarmin, there were two sets of (partially overlapping) suffixes: nominative ones and oblique ones. The nominative ones were applied to the nominative stem, the oblique ones on to either the oblique stem or on to case desinences.
However, in Proto-Cwarmin, the nominative possessive suffixes were almost exclusively used with transitive subjects and complements of intransitive verbs. The accusative stem and the oblique suffixes - obscuring the accusative morpheme itself - together formed a sort of absolutive case.
This situation still is - at least partially - the case in Ræsmjinj, Ətimin and Atami. In Atami, the ergative patterning only holds with first or second person possessors. In Ræsmjinj there is now only one set of suffixes - stemming from the oblique ones - but for a handful of nouns and pronouns that stand with possessive suffixes, the ergative pattern holds and is visible due to morphophonemic traces of the accusative vs. nominative stem. Conservative dialects of Ətimin keep the proto-Cwarmin possession marking system intact, other dialects have either generalized the absolutive or the ergative form as subject.
Constructions that don't license subjects
- infinitive marking (poss suffixes), verb nouns and negative unmarked infinitives
Possessive suffixes on infinitives and verb nouns correlated with the object of transitive verbs or the subject of intransitives. An antipassive form whose possessive suffix correlated with the subject existed.
Negative infinitives had the transitive subject in the genitive, and the nominative served an absolutive role. Atami keeps this for the negative infinitives.
Verbs of perception and causatives
Even though the verb congruence was nom-acc-like, the transitive subject of verbs of perception tended to be marked with dative, and the object with nominative. This is kept in Ətimin and Atami.
- passive causatives - (nom v for intransitives, gen nom v for transitives)
Causatives and passive causatives are fairly commonly used in Cwarminoid languages. For active causatives, the causee was generally in the genitive, and the embedded object was in the aaccusative. The proto-Cwarmin system survives in Atami.
Verb-noun complements
Verbal complements of subjects of transitive verbs take a postposed short copula, all other complements take the nominative complement case. Ətimin has slightly rearranged this, but the ergative distribution of it still holds, now with the short copula replaced by an instrumental case marker.
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