Re: Noun Cases

Michael wrote:

<<In languages that use noun cases is there such a thing as a caseless,
 "infinitive" form of the noun? Or are the nouns always in a case?>>

To say that a noun was caseless would indicate that the noun performs no role in
the sentence. So, yes, nouns always do have a case. The dictionary form will
depend on the language. The "base" form is generally the nominative in
nominative/accusative languages and the absolutive in ergative/absolutive
languages. Now, if you consider a language like Latin, your idea of an
"infinitive" form might be represented best as the stem in a Latin noun. So,
for example, in the word "domus" (house?), the stem would be "dom-". You can't
ever use the stem in a sentence (though one can imagine being able to use it
form compounds, if you had a language like this), but it's to this stem that
all the case-endings (including the nominative) get added. Additionally, if you
had a noun that could change genders, the thing that would remain constant
would be the stem.

-David

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