Re: coexisting case question

Arabic calls it the "construct case", IIRC.
The quantitative case exists as adverbs in Chinese and Japanese, as well as
Korean.

Hon o issatsu yomu
Book ACC one-book read

Eugene

On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 6:36 AM, René Uittenbogaard <ruittenb@...>wrote:

> My question concerns the case of which I've forgotten the name,
> let me call it the "reverse genitive" case just for convenience.
> The idea behind it was that the possessed thing is in the "reverse
> genitive" case and the possessor in the appropriate case in the
> sentence:
>
> I-NOM look_at palace-ACC king-GEN.
> I'm looking at the palace of the king.
>
> vs.
>
> I-NOM look_at palace-REVGEN king-ACC.
> I'm looking at the palace of the king.
>
>
> Now my question is: would it be very unlikely for a language to use
> this "reverse genitive" case only for quantities, and the usual
> genitive otherwise, so that the following constructs coexisted:
>
> For "usual" genitives:
> I-NOM hold book-ACC lady-GEN.
> I am holding a book of the lady.
>
> But for quantities:
> I-NOM hold glass-REVGEN wine-ACC.
> I am holding a glass of wine.
>
> We might even label this last example as "quantitative case".
> What's in a name, but it looks a lot more plausible like this :)
>
> I-NOM hold glass-QUANT wine-ACC.
> I am holding a glass of wine.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> René
>

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