Ergative–absolutive alignment

In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the subject of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent of a transitive verb. In ergative–absolutive languages with grammatical case, the ergative case refers to the marking of agents of transitive verbs, distinguishing it from the concept of a "subject" of a transitive or intransitive verb in English.

Source: Wikipedia — Ergative–absolutive alignment (CC BY-SA 4.0)