Volition (linguistics)

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In linguistics, volition refers to a distinction that is made in some languages' verb conjugations or case assignment to express whether the subject intended the action or not, or whether it was done voluntarily or accidentally.

The distinction is not made in English; for example, the sentence "he dropped the vase" does not imply whether the person referred to as he was acting maliciously, or whether it was an accident. In Hindi, volition can be expressed with certain verbs, when the subject did something on purpose the subject noun gets the ergative case suffix, if the subject did not intend to do something, the subject noun is in the nominative case instead.

Hindi

a.	Rām	kʰãs-a
	Ram.MASC.NOM	cough-PRF.MASC.SG
	'Ram coughed.'
b.	Rām-ne	kʰãs-a
	Ram-MASC.ERG	cough-PRF.MASC.SG
	'Ram coughed (purposefully).'

Volition is prominent in active-stative languages with fluid-S.