Ergative verb

An ergative verb is a type of verb in some languages that changes the way it looks depending on who or what is doing the action.

Imagine you and your friend are playing catch outside. You throw the ball to your friend, and your friend catches it. In English, we would use the same word "catch" to describe what both you and your friend did. But in some other languages, the word for "catch" might look different depending on whether you or your friend did the action.

Let's pretend we're speaking a made-up language called "Kidzlish." In Kidzlish, we add a special ending to verbs to show who did the action. When you throw the ball, you would use the word "catch," but when your friend catches it, we would say "catched-ju." The "-ju" at the end tells us that your friend did the action, while the plain "catch" means you did it.

This is called an ergative verb, because it changes the way it looks depending on whether the subject (the person or thing doing the action) is doing the action or receiving it. In Kidzlish, the verb "catch" is ergative, but in English, it is not. There are many languages in the world that use ergative verbs, and it can be tricky to learn how to use them correctly!