Katukina-Kanamari is a strongly ergative language, with ergative case-marking, ergative verbal cross-referencing and ergative VP constituency, plus an absolutive pivot for focalization, WH questions, and relative clauses. An antipassive is available (and must be utilized) in order to make focalization, WH questions and relative clauses available to the agent. A little-used nominative-accusative transitive clause type exists alongside the ergative clause type. The reflexive, applicative, and noun incorporation all uniquely target the patient, providing limited domains for the expression of a nominative-accusative pattern. This creates real problems for the traditional grammatical notion of subject, which are claimed to be organized in such a way that the absolutive is the synchronic subject, leaving the ergative to be the direct object. [Disponible : http://qxls.free.fr/QxlsProf/KatBB2009Abril.pdf]
