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Re: Case

From:Boudewijn Rempt <bsarempt@...>
Date:Saturday, July 10, 1999, 7:44
On Fri, 9 Jul 1999, nicole wrote:

> My conlang used to have a really really elaborate case system, with > probably about twenty five different cases. Recently I decided to > change this to just a few: > nominative > accusative > dative > genitive > prepositional(?)-does anyone have a better name for that-its for use > after prepositions, obviously >=20 > I'm just curious, but those of you who do use case in your language, how > many do you have? Where does it go from being "cool" to just plain > unworkable? >=20
I'm currently engaged in reanalyzing the Denden system of adpositional particles, and I've decided to term these 'case particles', after all, all these particles belong to the same formal class and most of them have meanings that look a lot like traditional cases. What put me on to this was the analysis of the particle _tan_ I've posted here a while ago. What I have at the moment is (haven't counted them): Cases Verbal arguments: instrumental: hye INST 'with' dative: lye DAT 'to' Nominal relationships genitive: oib GEN 'of' possessive: lua POSS 'of' comparative: logh COMP 'like' relative: tan RTV ornative: daxa ORN sociative: dandir SOC 'together' comitative: quat ~ y COM 'with, together, and' =20 Locative cases Location =20 locative: ar LOC (essive in Finnish) 'at' Interior inside: yomurin INESS inessive 'in, inside' =20 Exterior =20 adessive: wau ADESS 'at', 'close by' outside: nil EXESS exessive 'out, outside' =20 Position =20 front: atahl FRONT frontive 'in front of'=20 behind: qe ~ ke ~ che POST postive 'behind of' between: canuin ~ can INTRA intrative 'through', 'between' around: tayr TEG tegimentive 'around, covering' superessive: yulish SUPER1 'on top of' subessive: naha SUBESS 'under' Source partitive: cu ~ zu PARTI 'in' Destination =20 translative: asfran TRNSL 'towards' =20 Interior =20 illative: cashe ILLA 'going inside (deeply) =20 Exterior =20 allative: yohal ALLA 'towards' =20 possessive locative:=20 perlative: matan PERLA 'along(side)': e.g. walking alongside a=20 river tangentive: par TANGA 'going along, while touching':=20 stroking someone along his back Others: privative: tu PRIV 'without, missing' All particles can used either as a preposition or as a postposition, depend= ing upon the preference of the speaker/author. I'm working on examples, like: =2E soi hye s=FCmzi ka, tan dasir hod'shulas ga, daha. wine INST drunk TOP TAN 3pfMGH head.mist NOM tomorrow=20 They're drunk with wine, they'll have a misty head, tomorrow. =2E dabbe ca qiri.ri e.do penresh hye tau.qireze.za paint into eye,DUP poss.1sMGH spatter INST NEG.see.EXP Because the paint spattered into my eyes I couldn't see. =2E Tan lauy=E8 purgat.dir cyun.cyun gelaw tayde Hamal ga zunga.dan RTV well god.p very.DUP angry because Hamal NOM curse.AGP The gods of the well are extremely angry because Hamal is one=20 who curses. =20 =2E S=E9or oib Tacal verech.zi ga, sero gedir.ju doxaz ajun. sword GEN Tacal old.AUG NOM 1sHGH think.CRT 1000 year Tacal's sword is very old, I think a thousand years. =20 =2E Klonlyan lua Pal cuyinleng lyantara. Lyantara ka arayachar= =20 palace POSS emperor outstanding beautiful splendour TOP glory lua Pal.zi pela y lyaunya lua Charya ga. POSS emperor.AUG symbolize COM pride POSS Charya NOM.=20 The palace of the emperor is outstandingly beautiful. The splendour symbolizes the glory of the great emperor and is the pride of Charya. =20 =2E lyan qoron.yi daxa ga beauty face.DIM ORN NOM She has a pretty face =20 =2E maile qurejale yar daxa Quandiyal teshitlo'ar nahan. shirt see-through long ORN Quandiyal market.LOC go Leng.leng qureray ga! very.DUP nice NOM Quandiyal went to the market wearing a long, gauze maile. It looked very nice. =20 And so on... These examples have been taken from the preliminary grammar of Denden on my webpage, where you can find them complete with RealAudio files for most of the examples. But since these cases don't come with an elaborate inflectional system, I don't have much trouble using them. And anyway, every for every case=20 particle the relative particle _tan_ can be substituted! Boudewijn Rempt | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt