Re: THEORY: genitive vs. construct case/izafe

Hello, Joerg, Henrik, Julia, and others.

Everyone has been telling Julia about the fact that
the "construct state" marks the head-noun,
whereas the "genitive case" marks the dependent-noun,
of a genitive construction.

Also, it has been pointed out that "construct state" is called
"state" instead of "case", and can occur in "Suffixaufnahme".

But as far as I have seen, no-one on this thread has yet really gone
any deeper into the difference between "state" and "case";
in particular, no-one yet has told the thread what other
"states" there might be.

From the Wikipedia article on "Arabic grammar",
"construct" is the "third horn on the bull"
whose more familiar two horns are "definite" and "indefinite".

So, for example, in a Semitic language like Hebrew or Arabic,
the opposition might be ---
"the mine" vs "a mine" vs "Solomon's mine".

Did I understand that information correctly?
If not, can someone elaborate/correct it?

-----

Is that kind of information also part of
what Julia's question asked for?

Thank you.

Tom H.C. in MI

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@W...>
> wrote:
> [snip]
> Exactly.  But more precisely, it is the construct _state_, because
> the modified noun can be, in languages with case systems such as
> Classical Arabic, of any case.  So, it is "Modifier Modified-CONSTR-X"
> with "X" being the case of the NP.  Classical Arabic also has a
> genitive case, so it is "Modified-CONSTR-X Modifier-GEN" (Arabic
> puts modifiers after the head).
> [snip]
> AFAIK, _izafe_ is the Arabic word for "construct state", or something
> like that.  After all, the Arabs wrote grammars of their own language,
> so they have a name for it.  But I might be wrong.
> [snip]

Replies