Active case-marking natlangs (was Re: What isneeded in anconlang classificatory system?)

And Rosta wrote:

> Matt:
> > Tokana is another conlang with an active case-marking system.  Tokana is
> > strictly dependent-marking in this regard, inasmuch as there is no agreement
> > morphology on verbs.  The breakdown of case forms works more-or-less
> > like this:
> >
> > ABSOLUTIVE:  patients/themes (including subjects of non-eventive verbs)
> > NOMINATIVE:  volitional agents of eventive verbs (both transitive and
> > intransitive)
> > DATIVE ("to/at/in"):  recipients, experiencers of verbs of
> > perception/emotion/cognition, goals, locations, possessors
> > ABLATIVE ("from/of/out of"):  sources, non-volitional agents of
> > eventive verbs,
> > standards of comparison, supersets in partitive relations, reasons/motives,
> > substances
> > INSTRUMENTAL ("with/by/via/through"):  instruments and inanimate actors,
> > measurements/durations, degrees of comparison
> > ALLATIVE ("towards/for"):  benefactees, 'non-endpoint goals'
> > COMITATIVE ("with"):  comitatives, subsidiary instruments, possessees
>
> So reasons are expressed by the ablative, but are purposes expressed by
> the allative?
Right.  Examples:

   Me    tahe     imoik   itaul   moututu
   I-Abs stay-Pst at-home the-Abl illness-Abl
   "I stayed at home on account of my illness"

   Ma    pusuke   homa  meile iten    solatsne
   I-Nom make-Pst bread honey the-All wedding-All
   "I made honeybread for the wedding"

Compare this second sentence with the following, in which the dative necessarily
expresses location:

   Ma    pusuke   homa  meile ite'    solatse
   I-Nom make-Pst bread honey the-Dat wedding-Dat
   "I made honeybread at the wedding"

The allative is also used with verbs of thinking and saying to express subject
matter:

   Ma    itsesa        iten    solatsne
   I-Nom tell-Pst-them the-All wedding-All
   "I told them about the wedding"


> Does Tokana have passive or antipassive? If so, can the demoted argument
> ('term') be expressed by an oblique, and if so what case would it take?
> I'd guess that a demoted nominative would become an ablative and a
> demoted absolutive would become dative or allative (possibly with both
> being grammatical but allatives having more of a conative interpretation?).
> OTOH, maybe there isn't much functional need for a passive, since, iirc,
> arguments can be left unexpressed, so "John was killed" could be rendered
> as "John-abs kill", and "(also) killed was John" as "kill John-abs",
> -- or?
Tokana does not have passives or antipassives, in the sense that you mean.  Viz.,
there are no constructions which serve to promote or demote arguments, changing
their case in the process.  Perhaps the closest thing to a relation-changing
operation in Tokana is the reflexive, formed by adding the prefix "uma(k)-" to a
transitive verb.  The subjects of reflexive verbs are always in the absolutive
case, regardless of the case used for the corresponding transitive subject:

   Ma    kahtin
   I-Nom hit-Pst-him(Abs)
   "I hit him"

   Me    umakahte
   I-Abs Refl-hit-Pst
   "I hit myself"

Otherwise, passive/antipassive-type meanings are expressed by simply leaving out
arguments, as you guessed.  To express "John was killed", simply omit all mention
of the agent.  There are actually two possible constructions here:  If the focus
is on the event ("John got killed"), the regular past tense form of the verb is
used; if the focus is on the resultant state ("John has been killed, John is
dead"), the present tense stative form is used:

   Ne      Tsion    kaihe
   the-Abs John-Abs kill-Pst
   "John was killed"

   Ne      Tsion    kaieha
   the-Abs John-Abs kill-Stat
   "John is (in a state of having been) killed"

Eliminating the patient requires the addition of the prefix "u(k)-" to the verb
stem.  I call this prefix an antipassive marker, but since the addition of this
prefix does not cause any change in case-marking/grammatical relations, the term
is not entirely appropriate.  Instead, adding "u(k)-" indicates that the
participant which *would be* expressed with absolutive case has an
unknown/indeterminate referent:

   Na      Tsion    kaihin            Taniel
   the-Nom John-Nom kill-Pst-the(Abs) Daniel-Abs
   "John killed Daniel"

   Na      Tsion    ukaihe
   the-Nom John-Nom Antipass-kill-Pst
   "John killed someone"

Notice that the agent is still marked with nominative case in the second
sentence.  Eliminating this agent, we get:

   Ukaihe
   Antipass-kill-Pst
   "Someone was killed"


> BTW, how is focus done in Tokana these days?
The focussed constituent is placed immediately in front of the verb, and the verb
is inflected in the dependent order (the set of forms normally used when the verb
is in a subordinate clause):

   Na      Tsion    kaihin            Taniel
   the-Nom John-Nom kill-Pst-the(Abs) Daniel-Abs
   "John killed Daniel"

   Na      Tsion    ne      Taniel     kaihi'
   the-Nom John-Nom the-Abs Daniel-Abs kill-Pst-Dep
   "John killed DANIEL" [as opposed to someone else]

or, with a non-fronted agent:

   Ne      Taniel     kaihi'na         Tsion
   the-Abs Daniel-Abs kill-Pst-Dep-the John-Nom
   "John killed DANIEL"

(the apostrophe in these last two examples indicates an accent mark on the
preceding vowel)

In my capacity as con-linguist of Tokana, I believe that this focus construction
is a hidden cleft construction.  The second sentence is actually "It is Daniel
that John killed", but with a null copula and no expletive "it" subject.

Matt.