Inflectional forms that indicate the grammatical functions of nouns.
3
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0answers
43 views
What is “contacting case”?
According to Wikipedia, the Bats language of Eastern Georgia has a case called "contacting", but no description is offered as to its function.
I checked the Russian and Georgian versions of the page ...
0
votes
0answers
48 views
Is there any universal semantic coding for noun cases similar to verb aspectology?
I am aware of the argument/actant theories, but perhaps there is something like universal semantical coding for the nouns as well.
For Argument concepts,you can see the relevant Wikipedia page for ...
5
votes
2answers
87 views
Is it okay that Ergative case be unmarked?
I found a language of Celebes island in Indonesia, its name is Mongondow (mog). It has a Phillipine's Alignment morphosyntactic which it has combination of Accusative and Ergative languages. The word ...
6
votes
2answers
124 views
Does the Finnish translative case exist in other languages?
The Finnish translative case expresses the concept of becoming or turning into something else. Does this case exist in other languages, or is it unique to Finnish? How is this concept most commonly ...
6
votes
3answers
123 views
Is there a name for the “case” that is a conflation of nominative and accusative?
In Indo-European languages, the neuter is often characterized by syncretism between nominative and accusative.
There are other examples of syncretism and also historical change where the nominative ...
16
votes
1answer
197 views
Is there a language known to have developed a case system?
There are many languages which, having descended from a language with a complex case system, have lost or greatly simplified theirs: Bulgarian (Slavic), English (Germanic), most Romance languages etc. ...
10
votes
4answers
278 views
Declinable conjunctions
Duolingo states: “In German, conjunctions do not change with the case (i.e. they are not declinable).”1 I started to think of languages I know, and I don't remember any which would have this property.
...
11
votes
5answers
272 views
Are there any languages where the genitive case changes according to its object?
In forms like Claudio's house or Claudio's dogs, are there languages in which the Claudio's would change depending on gender and number of the houses or dogs?
3
votes
1answer
190 views
Why is the number of grammatical cases in Germanic and Romance languages decreasing?
There is a tendency in Germanic and Romance languages that the number of the grammatical cases is decreasing.
The Indo-European proto-language should have 8 grammatical cases, in Latin we already ...
6
votes
1answer
93 views
Are there languages with PCC effects and a more developed person system?
The Person-Case Constraint (PCC) is a constraint on which arguments can co-occur in a construction such as a causative/applicative/ditransitive. It might cause a combination of persons to be ...
2
votes
1answer
352 views
What are the differences between inherent, lexical and structural case?
What are the differences between these three kinds of case? How do we know that they are real? I kind of understand that inherent and lexical case are idiomatic and lead to variation in case marking, ...
8
votes
1answer
228 views
How do linguists distinguish between case endings and postpositions, especially in languages which have both and/or have no traditional grammar
In my attempt to learn Georgian, an agglutinative language of the South Caucasus, I have learned that it has both case endings and postpositions.
I also have some familiarity with Korean and Japanese ...
4
votes
1answer
195 views
Thematic roles in some languages
I have a question about semantic roles in Latin and Russian.
Latin
Quibusdam […] sudor erumpit.
someone. DAT.PL sweat. NOM.SG come out.PRES.3SG.
‘Some people start sweating.’
...
5
votes
2answers
243 views
Are there any recent articles on the current state of Case theory?
Specifically I'm interested in the split between Structural Case and Morphological case.
Structural Case has been part of Chomskyan syntactic theory since at least Government & Binding (GB). ...
4
votes
1answer
64 views
Case reassignment without change in number of cases
Most languages with cases seem to be either gaining or losing them diachronically (The Indo-European languages are an example of the latter, and the Uralic languages of the former). Manchu and Xibe (a ...
6
votes
4answers
316 views
Are there any papers etc analyzing Japanese as a language with noun cases rather than particles?
Japanese is often included in lists of agglutinating languages.
Many (most?) agglutinating languages are analysed as having case systems.
Of course cases and prepositions/postpositions fill the same ...
