Re: THEORY: Odd case systems (was Re: Charlie and I)

Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>
> "Raymond A. Brown" wrote:
>
> > There is case; it just works
> > differently from both Classical Latin & from what the prescriptivists think
> > English should have.
>
> True.  I can't remember if I've already told the list about this, but
> in Atkan Aleut (Alaskan language), there is a case system of sorts,
> but not at all what you might expect.  The absolutive (in singular,
> -x^, the voiceless uvular fricative) is used for all nouns in the
> sentence if each is specifically mentioned:
>
> (1) Hlax^ mikakux^
>       boy:AbsSg  play:Pres:SgSub
>       "The boy is playing."
>
> (2) Hlax^          suunaadax^  agukux^
>       boy:AbsSg  boat:AbsSg  make:Pres:SgSub
>       "The boy is making a boat."
>
> (3) Piitrax^         asxinus kidukux^
>      Peter:AbsSg  girl:Pl   help:Pres:SgSub
>      "Peter is helping the girls."
>
> The relative (here, -m), on the other hand, is really weird.
> It's used for singular subjects, but tells you that an objective
> noun is implied by the verb but is not directly stated (i.e.,
> is a pronoun of some sort):
>
> (4) Hlam            aguqaa
>      boy:RELSg make:Past:SgObj
>      "The boy made it."
>
> (5) Piitram         kidukungis.
>      Peter:RelSg  help:Pres:PlObj
>      "Peter is helping them."
>
> The case essentially tells you "Hey, I'm a singular subject,
> but you also need to be looking for an object somewhere."
> But not only does the noun change, the verb decides to
> agree with the object instead.  It looks like all this might have
> evolved out of an ergative-absolutive system, but clearly
> isn't now, because the relative and absolutive can both be
> used for syntactic subjects of any type of verb (well, the
> relative can't be used for transitives, obviously, because
> there are no objects).  Of course, the whole system gets
> considerably messier when *all* nouns are implied, but we
> won't get into that...
>
        I like it very much! Are there resources on the web about this
language? I wonder if it wouldn't be something like that that happens in
Tj'a-ts'a~n, the language of the Sky People. The system of cases is very
strange in this language, and as a matter of fact I still don't master
it. It seems not to show really the function of nouns in the sentence
(in fact, the verbs agree with the nouns in many things like gender and
case, and the position of the pronominal complex of agreement in the
verb is the very thing that shows the function of the noun in the
sentence), and as a matter of fact even spatial cases can be used for
the subject of the verb. The case system seems to have nearly a semantic
meaning. The most difficult of the 34 cases are the cases I name (not
arbitrarily but nearly) ergative, absolutive, nominative, accusative and
equative-attributive-dative. I still don't know really how to use them,
but it seems to be a very messed-up active system that includes also
volitionality and maybe also something like you showed in Aleut. To give
you an example:

boj-ga-n-roj-aj-do pse-k'a-n-'aj-te
the-HuM-human-inessive tall-HuM-inessive
The man is tall. (just a fact)

boj-ga-n-roj pse-k'a-n
the-HuM-human(-equative-attributive-dative)
tall-HuM(-equative-attributive-dative)
The man is tall. (eternal truth)

boj-ga-n-roj-u pse-k'a-n-i
the-HuM-human-accusative tall-HuM-accusative
The man gets taller.

boj-ga-n-roj-u  k'a-n-i-pse-k
the-HuM-human-accusative HuM-accusative-tall-An
One makes the man taller. (the 'one' is supposed to be other than a Sky
Person or an animal, but still animated)

But I wonder if it is not the absolutive case that would be used if the
subject of the sentence was something else than a simple 'one', or
something else than a pronominal complex in the verb. I should ask my
source (if 'asking' is possible).

--
        Christophe Grandsire

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