A tripartite language is one that marks the agent, experiencer, and patient verb arguments each in different ways. If the language has morphological case , the arguments are marked as so:
- the agent is marked with the ergative case
- the experiencer is marked with the intransitive case
- the patient is marked with the accusative case
Languages lacking case inflections may indicate case with a fixed word order.
Tripartite languages are rare. Some examples are Indo-Aryan, Wangkumara, and Kalaw Lagaw Ya .
