Definition & Bedeutung von "Austronesian alignment"

What is "Austronesian alignment"?

Austronesian alignment is a grammatical system found in some Austronesian languages that marks the relationship between verbs and their arguments in a way that reflects the roles of participants in an action. In this alignment type, the subject of a transitive verb is marked differently from the subject of an intransitive verb. Additionally, the system often allows for a focus on different arguments, such as the actor or the object, influencing how the sentence is constructed. Austronesian alignment emphasizes the flexibility of argument structure and highlights the importance of context in understanding meaning within these languages. This system plays a crucial role in how information is prioritized and expressed in sentences.