different between pattern vs ergativity

English

Etymology

From earlier patten, paterne, from Middle English patron (“patron; example”), from Old French patron, from Medieval Latin patr?nus (“patron”). Doublet of patron.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?pat(?)n/, [?pa?(?)n]
• (US) IPA^(key): /?pæt??n/, [?pæ??n]
• Rhymes: -æt?(r)n

Noun

pattern (plural patterns)

1. Model, example.
   1. Something from which a copy is made; a model or outline. [from 14th c.]
      • 1923, ‘President Wilson’, Time, 18 Jun 1923:

        There is no reason why all colleges and universities should be cut to the same pattern.

   2. Someone or something seen as an example to be imitated; an exemplar. [from 15th c.]
      • 1793, Hester Piozzi, Thraliana, 19 March:

        Well! the King of France died pardoning & pitying all those who had tortured his Soul & Body, a great Pattern for us all.

      • 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.16:

        The Platonic Socrates was a pattern to subsequent philosophers for many ages.

   3. (now rare) A copy. [from 15th c.]
   4. (now only numismatics) A sample; of coins, an example which was struck but never minted. [from 16th c.]
   5. A representative example. [from 16th c.]
   6. (US) The material needed to make a piece of clothing. [from 17th c.]
   7. (textiles) The paper or cardboard template from which the parts of a garment are traced onto fabric prior to cutting out and assembling.
   8. (metalworking, dated) A full-sized model around which a mould of sand is made, to receive the melted metal. It is usually made of wood and in several parts, so as to be removed from the mould without damage.
   9. (computing) A text string containing wildcards, used for matching.

      There were no files matching the pattern *.txt.

2. Coherent or decorative arrangement.
   1. A design, motif or decoration, especially formed from regular repeated elements. [from 16th c.]
      • 2003, Valentino, ‘Is there a future in fashion's past?’, Time, 5 Feb 2003:

        On my way to work the other day, I stopped at a church in Rome and saw a painting of the Madonna. The subtle pattern of blues and golds in the embroidery of her dress was so amazing that I used it to design a new evening dress for my haute couture.

   2. A naturally-occurring or random arrangement of shapes, colours etc. which have a regular or decorative effect. [from 19th c.]
      • 2011, Rachel Cooke, The Observer, 19 Jun 2011:

        He lifted the entire joint or fowl up into the air, speared on a carving fork, and sliced pieces off it so that they fell on the plate below in perfectly organised patterns.

   3. The given spread, range etc. of shot fired from a gun. [from 19th c.]
   4. A particular sequence of events, facts etc. which can be understood, used to predict the future, or seen to have a mathematical, geometric, statistical etc. relationship. [from 19th c.]
      • 1980, ‘Shifting Targets’, Time, 6 Oct 1980:

        The three killings pointed to an ugly new shift in the enduring pattern of violence in Northern Ireland: the mostly Protestant Ulster police, or those suspected of affiliation with them, have become more prominent targets for the I.R.A. than the British troops.

      • 2003, Kate Hudson, The Guardian, 14 Aug 2003:

        Look again at how the US and its allies behaved then, and the pattern is unmistakable.

   5. (linguistics) An intelligible arrangement in a given area of language.
   6. (computing, music) A sequence of notes, percussion etc. in a tracker module, usable once or many times within the song.

Synonyms

• (1): original
• (1): stencil
• (2): tessellation
• (3): category
• (4): cycle
• (5): similarity
• See also Thesaurus:model

Antonyms

• antipattern

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

pattern (third-person singular simple present patterns, present participle patterning, simple past and past participle patterned)

1. To apply a pattern.
2. To make or design (anything) by, from, or after, something that serves as a pattern; to copy; to model; to imitate.
   • 1638, Sir Thomas Herbert, Some Yeares Travels into Africa and Asia the Great

     [A temple] patterned […] from that which Adam reared in Paradise.

3. To follow an example.
4. To fit into a pattern.
5. (transitive) To serve as an example for.

Synonyms

• model
• categorize

Translations

References

• pattern on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• reptant

English

Etymology

From ergative +? -ity.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /??(?)???t?v.?.ti/

Noun

ergativity (uncountable)

1. (linguistics) The property of a grammar's (or, by extension, a language's) being ergative; the attribute of possessing a grammatical pattern such that the object of a transitive verb is treated the same way as the subject of an intransitive one, while the subject of the transitive verb is treated differently.
   • 1991, Ronald W. Langacker, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar: Descriptive Application, Volume 2, Stanford University Press, page 386,

     We can speak of ergative/absolutive organization whenever intransitive subjects pattern with transitive objects (to the exclusion of transitive subjects). So defined, ergativity is independent of case marking and has many linguistic manifestations, some being observable in any given language. At the same time, ergativity competes with accusativity even in languages where it represents the predominant pattern.

   • 1994, R. M. W. Dixon, Ergativity, Cambridge University Press, page 1,

     Ergativity is thus complementary to the familiar grammatical pattern of accusativity, in which one case (nominative) marks both intransitive and transitive subject, with another case (accusative) being employed for transitive object.

   • 2000, Javier Rivas, Ergativity and Transitive Gradients in the Accusative and Infinitive Construction, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Imprenta Universitaría, page 153,

     Apart from the types of split ergativity-accusativity dealt with in the previous section, there are languages which show degrees of ergativity in their morphology and also —although less frequently— in their syntax, […] . Actually, Dixon (1994: 172) claims that syntactic ergativity is much stranger cross-linguistically than some degree of morphological ergativity. […] There are many languages in the world which show some degree of ergativity.

Usage notes

• Writers distinguish between morphological and syntactic ergativity, based on how it is manifested. (In studied languages, syntactic ergativity has not been observed to exist in the absence of the morphological sort.) For more details, see Ergativity#Realization of ergativity on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Coordinate terms

• accusativity

Translations

See also

• absolutive case
• accusativity
• ergative case

Further reading

• Ergative–absolutive language on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Nominative–accusative language on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Morphosyntactic alignment on Wikipedia.Wikipedia