Re: how many cases is too many?

Jim Henry wrote:

>On 11/22/05, David J. Peterson <dedalvs@g...> wrote:
> > I've been waiting for this topic to come up.  ;)  I cannot find my
> > typology handout, but there is a natural language with over
> > 140 local cases.  And those are just local cases (I think it has
> > six or seven non-local cases, as well).  So it need not be a
> > logical language to have a large number of cases.
>
>gjâ-zym-byn has over 350 spacetime postpositions, plus an open-ended
>set of derived abstract postpositions.  So 140 local
>cases is not excessive.  I would be surprised though if
>the 140 local case affixes can't be further broken
>down into component morphemes, at least diachronically.
So, what's the record for *monomorphemic non-local* cases? It seems that all
the huge case systems just have metric buttloads of local cases but still no
more than half a dozen non-local ones.

John Vertical