Re: Antigenetive case?

Christophe Grandsire wrote, en réponse à Joe:

> > Has anyone thought of a case which marks a genetive, but marks it on
> > the posessed, not the posessor?
> > Does this exist in any natlangs?
>
> What you describe is usually called the "construct case" or
> "construct state"
For Gzarondan I call it the 'retropossessive' form. In fact, the word
for God, _Rohly_ /rOKi/, is a contraction of "the one who possesses
time" (_roniu hlon yy_).

Ordinary possession works like this. Two subsequent noun phrases
(where the latter must have an explicit article) indicate that the
term on the left possesses the term on the right. If the possessing
entity is given by a single word (an article or noun) then it can be
hyphenated onto the article of the entity possessed.

There is no special case marking for ordinary possession - you mark
the case of the possessed item (on the article) as though the phrase
were a simple noun.

Example _Ran-roniu gzarin_ ("his dragon", nominative)
Compare _Roniu gzarin_ ("the dragon", nominative)

_ran_ is "his"
_ron_ is the definite article agreeing in gender with "dragon"
_-iu_ marks both nominative case and present tense

The retropossessive is indicated when the same word order is used for
ordinary possession except that the article of the _possessing_ item is
marked with the same suffix used to mark the nominative. Hyphens are
never used in the retropossessive form.

Example _Raniu ron gzarin_ ("he with the dragon")

Same elements as above.

What is described above is not the only way to indicate possession.

Adrian.