Re: Semantic field for local cases

Hello Harold,

Your system sounds interesting.
I've designed a writing system for a language with only monosyllabic and bisyllabic
words, where the monosyllabic words will be a regular contraction of some
bisyllabic ones.
The meaning of the words will be carried by the consonants and the relations
between the words, i.e. the cases, by the vowels. There are 36 (9*4) vowels, so
there are 1296 POSSIBLE cases, but I could drop a few vowels in the future if
they seem useless.

You wrote:

[...]
> -are nominative-inessive (inessive)------------in
[...]
> -ere genitive-inessive (elative)---------------out from
[...]
> -oe dative-inessive (illative)-----------------into
[...]
> -aue instrumental-inessive---------------------through
[...]

How do you translate the preposition "out"? The elative case implies a movement
from the inside of the object. But out do you say "out (from)" without any
movement?


----- Original Message -----
From: "Harold Ensle" <heensle@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2006 7:05 PM
Subject: Re: Semantic field for local cases


> You might find the case system of Ankanian interesting.
>
> It has a very similar system, but it is actually a subset
> of a more general process.
>
> Each word in Ankanian has a double declension based on the
> addition of two vowels. There are 4 primary cases:
>
> -a(r-) nominative
> -o dative
> -e genitive
> -ai instrumental
>
> There are then 6 secondary cases attachable to these
> 4 primary endings:
>
> positional:
> -a essive (location at)
> -o abessive (location near)
> -e inessive (location inside)
>
> logical:
> -u inclusive (with)
> -i exclusive (instead of)
> -r descriptive (like)
>
> This creates 28 cases. Here is a list which shows the
> possible combinations + sound changes incurred:
>
> -a nominative
> -ara nominative-essive (essive)----------------at
> -are nominative-inessive (inessive)------------in
> -aro nominative-abessive ----------------------at, near
> -au nominative-inclusive (comitative)----------with
> -ari nominative-exlusive-----------------------instead of
> -ar (-ra) nominative-descriptive (adverbal)----like
>
> -e (-eu) genitive------------------------------of
> -ea genitive-essive (ablative)-----------------from
> -ere genitive-inessive (elative)---------------out from
> -eo genitive-abessive--------------------------away from
> -eyu genitive-inclusive (causative)------------because of
> -eri genitive-exclusive------------------------despite
> -er genitive-descriptive-----------------------according to
>
> -o dative--------------------------------------(to)
> -oa dative-essive (allative)-------------------to
> -oe dative-inessive (illative)-----------------into
> -oro dative-abessive---------------------------toward
> -oru dative-inclusive--------------------------for
> -oi dative-exclusive---------------------------against
> -or dative-descriptive (mediative)-------------about
>
> -ai instrumental-------------------------------with, by
> -aia instrumental-essive (translative)---------across
> -aue instrumental-inessive---------------------through
> -aio instrumental-abessive---------------------around, by
> -aiu instrumental-inclusive--------------------because of
> -aui instrumental-exclusive--------------------despite
> -air instrumental-descriptive (referencial)----relating to
>
> If you contemplate on these forms, you will see how they
> each make sense in how the base case and the secondary
> case combine to create the listed prepositions.
>
> Harold
>
>