Re: R: Re: YAC: a couple of questions

Patrick Jarret wrote:

> >the locative or in the allative case only the last membre of the phrase
> >inflects, this because these cases come from pospositional construction
> >taking the absolutive case:
>
> Pardon my naivete but what is the allative case's purpose? Or the
> absolutive? Is there a good web site covering different cases and
> their purposes? I know Latin ones, Locative, Ablative, Nominative
> etc... but these are unknown to me.
Well, the allative (lat.: ad-lativus, from the supine of the verb ad-ferre,
'bring to') case's purpose is marking movement toward someone/something.
I'll give you an exemple in Vaiysi:

yegam talut
go.1s  home.all
I go home

The ablative (lat. ab-lativus, from ab-ferre) denotes movement *from*
someone/something. Vaiysi lacks ablative; Latin uses it more as an
instrumental case when it isn't used with prepositions. In the sentence
'otio exultas nimiumque gestis' (Catullus, carmen LI b, line 2) the ablative
has an instrumental function: 'with idleness'; 'because of idleness' can be
another translation which retains a stronger ablative meaning. In the
sentence 'Varus me meus ad suos amores / visum duxerat e foro otiosum'
(Catullus, carmen X, lines 1-2) the ablative is used with the preposition
_e(x)_, and retains its original meaning.

On to absolutive...

Languages can have different case systems. Latin uses a system called
accusative: the subject of a sentence takes the nominative case and the
object takes the accusative. If the verb doesn't take two arguments (i.e. it
is intransitive), the lone argument it has takes the nominative.

ego       eo
1s.nom go.1s
I go

ego         te             amo
1s.nom   thou.acc    love.1s
I love thee

Latin verbs always agree with the nominative case (there is always a
nominative in the sentence), so you'll probably find simply 'eo', or 'te
amo'.

My conlang Vaiysi uses a system called ergative: the subject of an
intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb take the absolutive
case. The subject of a transitive verb takes the ergative case. If the verb
takes only one argument, this is in the absolutive case.

vyea     yegam
1s.abs   go.1s
I go

ves         loudad     et
1s.erg    love.2s    thou.abs
I love thee

Vaiysi verbs, otoh, always agree with the absolutive case (there is always
an absolutive in the sentence); this means you'll probably find simply
'yegam' or 'ves loudad'.

There are, finally, languages which use active systems. The cases' purposes
are based on semantics: agentive is the case used for agents of normally
volitional verbs (break, push...) when it is the subject of the sentence;
patientive is the case used for objects of an action or a state, which
suffer its consequences - in other words the object of volitional verbs;
'recipient' case is the case used for subject of perception verbs (hear,
see, smell), non volitional intransitive verbs (sleep) or indirect objects
(dative); 'oblique' is the case used for objects of non volitional verbs.

If you want to read a list of 30 useful cases, visit this page:
http://www.valdyas.org/andal/languages/denden/grammar/cases.html which
explains the cases system of Boudewijn Rempt's Denden.

> Thanks for the patience
That's nothing.

> Patrick
>
Luca

>
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