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Re: Case

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Saturday, July 10, 1999, 4:20
nicole wrote:
> prepositional(?)-does anyone have a better name for that-its for use > after prepositions, obviously
It's a perfect name. I seem to remember that some Slavic languages have a case called "prepositional", altho there it's just that that case is ONLY used after preposition - but some prepositions use other cases. In other words, prepositional has only one use, but it's not the only case to have that use. In my first conlang, I had "spatial" and "temporal" cases. Spatial case was used after spatial prepositions (like "over") while "temporal" was used after temporal prepositions (like "during"), for prepositions like "because of", the case used was idiomatic.
> I'm just curious, but those of you who do use case in your language, how > many do you have?
Nineteen, but twelve of them are local, dealing with location and motion.
> Where does it go from being "cool" to just plain > unworkable?
I dunno, guess it depends on the individual. One factor in my choice of 19 was pseudo-numerological reasons - 7 non-local cases (in turn divided into 3 "basic cases" (absolutive, ergative, and genitive - the cases that have pronominal clitics), and 4 "nonbasic cases") + 12 local cases. I used to have even more, 20 local cases and 7 non-local cases, for 27 total, but 8 of those local cases I really didn't like. -- "If all Printers were determin'd not to print any thing till they were sure it would offend no body, there would be very little printed" - Benjamin Franklin http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Conlang/W.html http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html ICQ #: 18656696 AIM screen-name: NikTailor