Questions tagged [cases]
Inflectional forms that indicate the grammatical functions of nouns, pronouns and their modifiers (such as adjectives).
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Is Finnish harder than Latin? [closed]
I'm not interested in learning Finnish, but I do have some interest in Latin. I suspect that this is the case (no pun intended) because Latin only has 5 cases (plus a 6th that is used sparingly), but ...
0
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1answer
79 views
How does the Thai language express the instrumental?
In English and many European languages the instrumental is expressed with a preposition:
I eat noodles with chopsticks.
(But "with" is not dedicated to this function and has other uses such as the ...
6
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1answer
154 views
What is the difference between the nominative case and the subject?
I'm studying Japanese and recently I came across the term "double nominatives". The idea is that ga marks the nominative case, so a phrase with two ga has two phrases in the nominative case:
boku ga ...
5
votes
1answer
99 views
What is considered a grammatical case in the framework of turkic languages?
Let's take kazakh language as an example. In every source I've read there are 7 cases in kazakh language:
nominative úı - a house, laq - goatling;
genitive úı-diń - of a house, laq-tiń - of a ...
3
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5answers
556 views
What is the difference between case and adpositions?
The preposition expressions like "on top of the table", "under the tree", "above the building" are very well understood. Comparing these with the Germany noun cases "auf dem Tisch", "unter dem Baum", "...
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29 views
Are there languages in which overt morphological accusative case is obligatory on the second conjunct of a conjunction?
For example: (1) The officer believed [NP Mary and me]
Of course, the distribution of ACC pronouns in English doesn't really map onto ACC in overt morphological case languages.
1
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1answer
73 views
Grammatical case vs semantic case
I'm not sure what these terms mean. In my lecture notes I wrote that grammatical case is used to show the syntactic functions of a nominal syntagm, depending on its relation to the verb. Semantic case,...
1
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1answer
73 views
What cases are typical for nouns accompanying the subject?
In the phrase "I went to the shops with a friend", "a friend" is the accompanier, while I am the subject.
Some languages, such as Finnish (I believe) have a comitative case, which is taken by an ...
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2answers
97 views
Are there other languages, besides Latin, where a gender of a noun is determined by its genitive case ending?
Are there other languages, besides Latin, where a gender of a noun is determined by its genitive case ending?
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1answer
88 views
Is there a name other than “absolute” for this kind of construction?
In some languages there are absolute constructions like the Genitive Absolute in Greek:
Καὶ ἤδη ὥρας πολλῆς γενομένης προσελθόντες αὐτῷ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ἔλεγον ὅτι ἔρημός ἐστιν ὁ τόπος καὶ ἤδη ὥρα ...
2
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1answer
82 views
Problem with [NOMINATIVE] Case in GB & Phase Theory (MP)
Most of works on case theory in generative syntax GB (Vergnaud, 1985; Chomsky, 1981, 1986, among others) and in MP (Chomsky, 1995, et seq; Gallego, 2010; Hornstein, 2011, among others) assume the ...
1
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1answer
78 views
“To whom” in pied-piped infinitive relative clauses
In English wh raised from, or in situ in, a direct object or prepositional object, you can almost always use "who" at least as well as "whom",1 and in some cases you can only use "who":
Who/whom did ...
2
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0answers
68 views
Direct–inverse marking on the noun, or the possiblity of inverse alignment
A direct-inverse language, Wikipedia claims, is one which
involve[s] different grammar for transitive predications according to the relative positions of their "subject" and their "object" on a ...
2
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0answers
49 views
What is configurational case assignment?
How does it differ with inherent case?
I found this definition from Maria Polinsky and Omer Preminger paper; Noun phrases are assigned case by virtue of their structural position relative to certain ...
2
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1answer
200 views
Drawing case specified trees for english gerunds
I'm reading Adger's Core Syntax book and am having a tough time with Exercise 1 of the functional categories chapter.
The exercise is about gerunds. Gerunds are specified by the form of suffixing -...
1
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1answer
125 views
Should Japanese postpositions be treated as belonging to the same category as English prepositions?
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language and WALS, as well as Wikipedia, treat both English prepositions and Japanese postpositions (particles) as belonging to 'adpositions' (although CGEL ...
2
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0answers
38 views
Configurational assignment of accusative case?
I'm an undergraduate linguistics student, and I'm currently reading this chapter by Coon & Preminger (2015) (http://ling.umd.edu/assets/publications/Coon-Preminger-17-SplitErgativity.pdf), which ...
3
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4answers
216 views
How “the case system collapses” in e.g. Latin
A comment on Understanding the purpose of determiners/articles/demonstratives in language suggested that case systems break down:
For unrelated reasons, the case system collapses, so that word ...
1
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1answer
63 views
Is there a grammatical case indicating displacement?
As part of a constructed language experiment I am trying to write phrases with clause structure of [noun supersedes noun] as just two words. For example, “death before dishonor” or “freedom over ...
0
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0answers
99 views
What does “referentiality” mean?
I have problems with the linguistic terms. I did not find satisfactory explanation
about "referentiality". On the other hand, what are the differences between "case" and "referentiality"? If there is, ...
2
votes
3answers
146 views
How does 'like a book' befit the Translative, and not Essive, Case?
McWhorter, J. PhD Linguistics (Stanford). The Language Hoax (2016). p. 56 Bottom.
I speak no Estonian. 1. But how does the preposition 'like' conveys the Translative Case? E.g., an encyclopedia ...
3
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1answer
34 views
Case of Nominal Associate in Clauses with Exceptional case-marking
I've been wondering whether the nominal associate of expletive there gets nominative, accusative or dative case in clauses with exceptional case-marking in other languages, since case isn't visible ...
5
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1answer
171 views
Instrumental - nominative inversion in Polish
While scrolling through a course in Polish, I saw the following sentence:
Wynikiem wyrażenia jest nowa relacja. -- *resultant (of the) expression is (a) new relation
This is not the first time I ...
7
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2answers
356 views
Are there any languages with a case system like Esperanto's?
Thinking about Esperanto's case system, if I saw that in a natural language, I would think it was rather odd.
Esperanto only has two cases: accusative and non-accusative. The non-accusative, on is ...
0
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2answers
127 views
Doesn't Sanskrit use adpositions of any kind?
For some reason, the Wikipedia article makes no mention of any adpositions of any kind. I find it highly unbelievable that the language makes no use of such. It has a case system, but there's only 8 ...
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2answers
140 views
Grammatical Case for Noun Phrase in English
Consider the sentence:
John's book is blue.
What is the grammatical case of "book" here? The two obvious choices are nominative or genitive.
Most information online suggests it is nominative, ...
17
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3answers
2k views
What is “case”?
As a non-linguist, I am confused about the concept of case. What is its definition, as linguists use it? Is it about the different forms that nouns/pronouns can take? Is it about the function of the ...
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0answers
95 views
What does CGEL mean by 'instability in the system' in their explanation of case?
Consider the following passage from CGEL (p. 458, boldfaced emphasis mine):
We look first at the contrast between nominative and accusative case, where we find a considerable amount of variation ...
5
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0answers
61 views
List of Hungarian toponyms by interior/surface case
Hungarian toponyms can be grouped grammatically according to whether they take the "interior" cases (inessive, illative, and elative) or the "surface" cases (superessive, sublative, and delative) to ...
3
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1answer
145 views
Do case endings really make sentences shorter?
In the Language Construction Kit, Mark Rosenfelder makes the claim that case endings 'makes things compact and frees up word order'. The latter is pretty obvious, but do case endings really make ...
3
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2answers
72 views
Is there a language where in declension number is affixed peripherally to case?
Is there a language where, given that number and case are affixed seperately not fusionally, a noun can have the structure of , e.g. ithawen = itha-w-en [woman]+GEN+PL ("of the women, the women's")? I ...
3
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1answer
104 views
Are there any languages where possessive nouns have to agree with the head noun?
I know there are plenty of languages out there where possessive personal pronouns can and do agree with the head noun in number and case. But I was wondering if there were any where nouns also had to ...
4
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3answers
412 views
As French is a so-called Roman language, where are the cases? [duplicate]
French language is known to be a Roman language, just like Spanish, Italian, Swiss Roman…
Those Roman languages are told to be originating from Latin language.
When I learnt Latin, one of the first (...
2
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5answers
253 views
How do languages with case deal with 'sentential arguments'?
I'm not 100% sure of the proper terminology here, so I'm just using the one used in the LCK.
What I mean by a sentential argument is an argument that is a sentence rather than a noun phrase.
Case in ...
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2answers
88 views
Why is it that direct object may be marked with either ACC or GEN case, depending on the verb in Slavic languages?
Why is it that in many or all Slavic languages e.g. the verbs “need” and “see” mark the direct object with genitive case, whereas the nouns “buy” and “eat” do so with accusative case?
Is it related ...
2
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0answers
63 views
Subjective pronouns in English copulas: gradual loss of objective case, or emphatic construction taking over?
I'm interested in the historical linguistics of constructions like "that's me" versus "this is she" when answering the phone. Searching online led to a Google Books peephole view of a book that ...
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1answer
274 views
Is case-marking really useful for such languages?
CASES
The function of cases is to differentiate nouns in order for the reader/hearer to know what syntactic/semantic function it is performing in a sentence since others languages, such as Portuguese,...
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2answers
416 views
Need for English not to have many grammatical cases
In other languages (mainly Romance languages such as: Portuguese and Spanish), we have many grammatical cases such as: abessivo
ablativo,
absolutivo,
acusativo,
adessivo;
English doesn't feature such ...
4
votes
0answers
82 views
Are there any universals about how m-case can pattern for predicate NPs?
Predicate noun phrases (NPs) have different patterns of case in different languages.
Even closely related languages can show significant differences (Sigurðsson 2008). For example, among the Germanic ...
6
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3answers
394 views
How dissimilar must case endings be to each other?
I'm asking this question for a conlang. I know that's normally too subjective for this forum, but honestly, I think this may be an exception.
I tend to try to keep things as terse as possible. Often ...
2
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1answer
130 views
Theta-Marking, Case-Marking and Argumenthood in Copular Sentences
Nominal predicates in copular sentences are peculiar because in certain languages, they acquire case other than accusative case. Even English was so, e.g. "it is I (NOM)" vs. "it is me (ACC)." Perhaps ...
3
votes
1answer
208 views
Case assignment with prepositions
Consider these examples:
'I am happy with my parents'
my parents gets assigned Case by 'with'.
*'I am proud with my parents'
My question is as follows:
What is the reasoning for 2 being ...
3
votes
1answer
96 views
How do you assign Case to sentences with an infinitval clause?
Look at this example:
For the butler to attack the robber would be surprising.
Here, the butler and the robber are assigned accusative Case. Is 'For' assigning case to the butler and 'to attack' ...
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0answers
157 views
wals chapter 50 regarding german language
Regarding asymmetrical case marking in German referring WALS chapter 50, I understand the asymmetry in German (ich : I; mich : me; mir : to me; er : he; ihm : to him; ihn : him, etc.) but the value is ...
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4answers
421 views
Languages preserving loanword inflections
Erudite English has an interesting practice where the plural form of loanwords may follow the inflectional grammar of the source language. Thus "campi" as well as "campuses", "minima" as well as "...
3
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3answers
175 views
Constructions like the double accusative outside of the Ancient Greek word “διδασκειν”
I'm looking for examples of having 2 or more nouns in the same case but with the different semantic roles given by the differing referents of the nouns, not entirely by one of morphological case, ...
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0answers
262 views
Overt Subjects of Non-Finite Clauses and Accusative Case
How do overt subjects of non-finite clauses such as the gerund clause below obtain accusative case despite there being no accusative case or ECM assigner?
Me arriving late is a sure thing
I think I ...
2
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3answers
1k views
How should I form grammatical cases in my conlang?
Now, I'm a Latin student, and that being said, I understand how cases operate and what they do for a language, but I've never enjoyed learning/studying/keeping track of them. That being said, I feel ...
7
votes
1answer
787 views
Declensions in Polish
Declension, as far as I know, corresponds to the act of creating boxes where you can pile up nouns that follow the same rule when inflected (generally due to cases). Classical Latin is often said to ...
4
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0answers
135 views
Month names variants
Regarding the question on TeX.stackexchange I am looking for generally used languages that use different cases for their month and day names.
Based on Czech and Slovak languages I can imagine two ...
