Re: What case is the inverse of the dative?

The genitive sounds good, but I am already using that as one of two possessive
cases (the other is, oddly enough, the possessive.) The genitive is used to
show something as the creation of something else ("John's book [that he wrote]"
as distinct from "John's book [that he owns]"), as being from somewhere ("Anne
of Green Gables") and to show family and other interpersonal relationships ("my
mother", "her business associate.")

Actually, I've started leaning towards having a single case which shows the indirect
object of a ditransitive verb, regardless of whether this beneficiary is the
giver or receiver. That makes a bit more sense. I may as well call that case
the dative. It just bugs me that the dative is always described as the
recipient and never as the giver.

Gregg

-----Original Message-----
From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Mark J. Reed
Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2008 5:01 PM
To: CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu
Subject: Re: [CONLANG] What case is the inverse of the dative?

IANALinguist, but I think the allative case is often a specialization
of the dative.  That is, languages which have an allative case
probably also have a dative case, but many languages with a dative
have no allative, and often use the dative for the purpose.

I consider the ablative to be the inverse of the allative, but there
are plenty of languages with an ablative but no allative (e.g. Latin).
 Still, I would say that the genitive is closer to an inverse of the
dative.


dative: for the benefit of
allative: moving to or toward
ablative: moving away from
genitive: of, coming from

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