Re: Adunaic case system

Replying out of order to several:

Ray wrote:
<<
Mainly because Latin did not make the distinction! It was potentially as
ambiguous as English, tho objctive genitives are more common than
subjective ones.
 >>

Ah, I see.  I saw it written in the grammar section of a Latin
dictionary.  But, then again, how reliable is the grammar section
of a Latin dictionary that has Latin words for "computer" and
"telephone" in it going to be?  It would be nice if it made the
distinction, though.  It's an interesting distinction to make.

Now on to Adunaic.  I think what may have been confusing me
was the description of the Normal.  I think it might be easier to
think that the Normal is used wherever the Objective and
Subjective aren't, and that the description is an attempt to
capture this.  So let me look over the whole thing again.

Quoting Doug's original:
<<
The Objective (O) form is used only in compound expressions, or actual
compounds.
 >>

Problem 1: What's the difference between a compound expression and
an "actual" compound!?

Anyway, looking at the actual examples, you have (I'm rewriting
them here for ease):

/minul tarik/
heaven-OBJ. pillar-NOR.
"pillar of heaven"

This looks like the English possessive "heaven's pillar".  This isn't
like
the construct state.  Consider the following Arabic example:

sajaara al-waalid
/car DET.-father/
"Father's car."

Here, the determiner is only placed on the last noun of a compound
phrase (and *only* that noun), so you could get:

sajaara bint al-waalid
/car daughter DET.-father/
"The car of the daughter of the father."

Oh, I see...  I just looked this up, and I guess the form of Arabic I
learned no longer has the construct state, because it no longer
really has case endings.  Go here for more info:

http://www.answers.com/topic/arabic-grammar

Anyway, the other form is

/minal tarik/
heaven-NOR. pillar-NOR.
"heavly pillar"

And in this example, the first is just an adjective (I assume it's in
the normal...?).  So based only on this example, it looks like the
genitive case in Turkish, or the 's possessive in English.

This would seemly contradict point (ii), quoted here:

Doug:
<<
(ii) Before another noun it is either (a) in apposition to it, or (b)
in and
adjectival or possessive gentive relation. . . .
 >>

The second example above would obviously be point (b), but only
the "adjectival" part of it, not the "possessive genitive relation"
part.
It would be interesting to see an example of the latter compared to
the objective example.  Oh, wait, now I see.  Quoting the last sentence
in the objective example:

Doug:
<<
_minal-tarik_ would mean 'heavenly pillar', sc. A pillar in the
sky, or made of cloud.
 >>

"A pillar made *of* cloud."  Perhaps Tolkien thought of that as
a "possessive genitive relation", rather than a relation of composition.
If so, that would make the objective a genitive.

But Ray wrote:
<<
I think equating with 'genitive' is incorrect; possession is shown
by the prefix _an-_  which is often reduced to _'n-_ (e.g. Bâr 'nAnadûnê
"Lord of Anadune"; Narîka 'nBâri 'nAdûn "The Eagles of the Lords of th
West").
 >>

So there's three different ways to mark possession in this language
(the Normal, the Objective, and this an- prefix), and no way to
distinguish any of them?  That is, all three types of possession are
the same?  Because while what you listed above is different from
the possession example listed in the Objective section, nowhere is
it stated that it *is* different.  This is beginning to seem more and
more like an unfinished sketch.  Perhaps if it had been finished
these kinks would've been ironed out.  As it is, it seems a little
jumbled.

-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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