like transitive agents, as in accusative languages, and arguments of inactive verbs such as to stand are marked like transitive objects, as in ergative languages. In such language, if the subject of a verb like run or swallow is defined as agentive, it will be always marked so even if the action of swallowing is involuntary. This subtype is sometimes known as split-S. In other languages, the marking of the intransitive argument is decided by the speaker, based on semantic considerations. For any given intransitive verb, the speaker may choose whether to mark the argument as agentive or patientive. In some of these languages, agentive marking encodes a degree of volition or control over the action, with the patientive used as the default case; in others, patientive marking encodes a lack of volition or control, suffering from or being otherwise affected by the action, or sympathy on the part of the speaker, with the agentive used as the default case. These two subtypes (patientive-default and agentive-default) are sometimes known as fluid-S. Argument marking If the language has morphological case, the arguments of a transitive verb are marked by using the agentive case for the subject and the patientive case for the object. The argument of an intransitive verb may be marked as either. Languages lacking case inflections may indicate case by different word orders, verb agreement, using adpositions, etc. For example, the patientive argument might precede the verb, and the agentive argument might follow the verb. Cross-linguistically, the agentive argument tends to be marked, and the patientive argument tends to be unmarked. That is, if one case is indicated by zero-inflection, it is often the patientive. Additionally, active languages differ from ergative languages in how split case marking intersects with Silverstein's (1976) nominal hierarchy: pronouns (1st>2nd>3rd person) > proper nouns > common nouns (human > animate > inanimate) Specifically, ergative languages with split case marking are more likely to use ergative rather than accusative marking for NPs lower down the hierarchy (to the right), whereas active languages are more likely to use active marking for NPs higher up the hierarchy (to the left), like first and second person pronouns. Dixon states that "In active languages, if active marking applies to an NP type a, it applies to every NP type to the left of a on the nominal hierarchy." Terminology Active languages are a relatively new field of study. Active