[Lingtyp] languages with accusative/ergative alternation

[Martin Haspelmath]

Dear typologists,

Does anyone know of a language that has been described as exhibiting an 
accusative/ergative alternation, i.e. where verbs with meanings like 
'break' or 'chase' can occur in two constructions such as (1) and (2) 
(which are schematic examples, not English)?

(1) the dog-NOM chased the cat-ACC

(2) the dog-ERG chased the cat-NOM

Such an alternation would be analogous to indirective/secundative 
alternations, as in the schematic examples (3) and (4).

(3) they provided food-ACC us-DAT ('they provided food to us')

(4) they provided us-ACC food-INS ('they provided us with food')

While indirective/secundative alternations have been described 
repeatedly, accusative/ergative alternations are little-known, and seem 
to be quite rare. Is this impression correct?

Thanks,

Martin

-- 
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/