Re: 2d case system

From: "Peter Bleackley" <Peter.Bleackley@...>

> I've had an idea for a very complex case system, with two axes. The first
> axis consists of gramatical role, comprising Agent, Subject, Patient,
> Dative, and various cases indicating location or motion. The second axis
> indicates relations of ownership, and consists of Simple (no ownership
> relation is specified), Genitive (specifies the owner of something),
> Possesional (indicates the thing owned) and Intermediate Possesive
(denotes
> something that is owned by something and in turn owns something else).
> Here's a gloss of a sentance showing this case system at work
Anybody know the alleged 50-odd cases of Tabassaran?

That's kinda an "urban legend" of linguistics, but I do know the Finno-Ugric
(Hungarian, Finnish etc.) languages have a two-dimensional local case
system. Hungarian, for instance:

Interior cases
  Stationary: -ben, -ban
  Approach: -be, -ba (illative)
  Depart: -bo"l, bo'l
Exterior surface cases
  Stationary: -n
  Approach: -re, -ra (sublative)
  Depart: -ro"l, ro'l
Exterior proximity cases
  Stationary: -ne'l, -na'l
  Approach: -hez, -ho:z, -hoz (allative)
  Depart: -to"l, -to'l
Terminus case
  Approach: -ig (terminative)
(V: = short + umlaut, V' = long, V" = long + umlaut)

Now that's not the same as what you're looking for; all these cases refer to
position and movement -- actual physical locations, rather than grammatical
functions. Hungarian also has those cases (genitive, accusative, etc.).

Finnish, which has 15 or 16 cases, has something very similar.

~Danny~

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