In linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

, volition refers to a distinction that is made in some language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

s' verb conjugation

Grammatical conjugation

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...

s or case assignment to express whether the subject

Subject (grammar)

The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...

 intended the action or not, or whether it was done voluntarily or accidentally.

The distinction is not made in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

. 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. However, in languages where there is no volitional conjugation, volition can be expressed using verbs that express intention. The volitional equivalent of the sentence above is "he threw the vase down".

In Hindi, volition can be expressed with certain verbs, when the subject did something on purpose the subject noun gets the ergative case

Ergative case

The ergative case is the grammatical case that identifies the subject of a transitive verb in ergative-absolutive languages.-Characteristics:...

 suffix, if the subject did not intend to do something, the subject noun is in the nominative case

Nominative case

The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...

 instead.

Hindi

a.	Rām	khãs-a
|Ram.MASC Grammatical gender Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be... .NOM Nominative case The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...	cough-PRF.MASC Grammatical gender Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be... .SG Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
|'Ram coughed.'
b.	Rām-ne	khãs-a
|Ram-MASC Grammatical gender Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be... .ERG Ergative case The ergative case is the grammatical case that identifies the subject of a transitive verb in ergative-absolutive languages.-Characteristics:...	cough-PRF.MASC Grammatical gender Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be... .SG Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
|'Ram coughed (purposefully).'

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

See also

• Thematic relation
  Thematic relation
  In a number of theories of linguistics, thematic relations is a term used to express the role that a noun phrase plays with respect to the action or state described by a sentence's verb. For example, in the sentence "Susan ate an apple", Susan is the doer of the eating, so she is an agent; the...
  
  
  • Agent (grammar)
    Agent (grammar)
    In linguistics, a grammatical agent is the cause or initiator of an event. Agent is the name of the thematic role...
    
    
  • Patient (grammar)
    Patient (grammar)
    In linguistics, a grammatical patient, also called the target or undergoer, is the participant of a situation upon whom an action is carried out. A patient as differentiated from a theme must undergo a change in state. A theme is denoted by a stative verb, where a patient is denoted by a dynamic...
    
    
• Morphosyntactic alignment
  Morphosyntactic alignment
  In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of transitive verbs and those of intransitive verbs...
  
  
  • Nominative–accusative language
  • Ergative–absolutive language
  • Active–stative language