Goal: Explore options for marking nominal functions
Note: Options include word order, adpositions, and/or case markers.
Tip: Case-marking is also referred to as “flagging.”
Work focus: Brainstorm/Learn/Try
Today is the last prompt asking you to explore options before the upcoming series of prompts that ask you to actually start creating forms and putting your plans into action. The focus today is on functions nouns can have within a clause and the case markers that can occur with nouns to indicate function. This prompt is wholly tied to an earlier decision you made about grammar—specifically, the syntactic alignment you wanted for your language. The syntactic alignment of your language will be reflected in what functions may be marked. Furthermore, if you chose a word order where the subject and object typically occur in a string without a verb separating them (i.e. SOV, VSO, VOS, OSV), you may want to think about marking cases to make it clear which noun is performing which role within the clause.
Before going into some case options you might consider for your language, there are a couple notes I want to make. The first is that case-marking comes in many different ways, including affixes that occur with a noun base, case-marking particles that occur with the nouns (but are not affixed to them), and adpositions used to mark case, as well as other relationships in the clause. As with other inflectional systems, remember that many languages often have one case that is unmarked in form, such as having an unmarked nominative form or an unmarked absolutive form.
Case-marking is also referred to as “flagging” within linguistics literature, so if you encounter the term “flag,” it is referring to the phenomenon of indicating nominal function (i.e. a case marker flags a noun’s role).
You may also choose not to mark case at all but to use other means to make functions clear, including strict word orders for clause structures.
Nominative-Accusative
The most basic description of these cases is that the nominative case indicates the subject of a verb (whether the verb is transitive or intransitive), and the accusative case indicates the direct object of a transitive verb. For instance, consider these basic clause “template” forms for a VSO language.
eat mouse seed “A mouse is eating a seed”
sleep mouse “A mouse is sleeping”
In both clauses, “mouse” would occur with nominative case-marking, and “seed” in the first clause would occur with accusative case-marking.
As a note for future grammatical forms, sometimes the accusative case also marks objects of adpositions, especially if those adpositions are grammaticalized from transitive verbs.
Ergative-Absolutive
The absolutive case typically marks the subject of an intransitive verb and the direct object of a transitive verb. Using the same example clauses from above, “mouse” would occur with different case markers in the two clauses in this system. In the first clause, “mouse” would occur with ergative case-marking, and “seed” would occur with absolutive case-marking. In the intransitive clause structure “sleep mouse,” “mouse” would occur with absolutive case-marking.
Other Cases
Beyond those basic argument cases, languages can incorporate a number of other cases, which can co-occur with either of the systems outlined above. If you are interested in these, I encourage you to research any cases you’re unfamiliar with to decide if you want to incorporate them into your language’s system. For each case, I provide a very basic description of its common usage (the ways cases can be used are quite diverse and can go far beyond what’s listed here!).
- dative (indirect object, or the recipient/intended beneficiary of the verb’s action)
- genitive (possessor of another noun)
- instrumental (tool by which the verb is performed)
- locative (location where the verb is performed)
- partitive (part of a whole)
- vocative (this is a marginal “case” used to indicate the addressee of a clause)
Within the locative realm, some languages have cases to mark locational information more specifically. For instance, Finnish has six different locative cases:
- inessive (internal location, such as metsässä “in/inside the forest”)
- elative (movement from inside of a location, such as metsästä “from inside the forest”)
- illative (movement into a location, such as metsään “into the forest”)
- adessive (external location, such as metsällä “at the forest”)
- ablative (movement away from [the outside of] a location, such as metsältä “from the forest”)
- allative (movement to [the outside of] a location, such as metsälle “to [the edge of] the forest”)
In general, if you’re interested in cases, I encourage you to look into Finnish case-marking, as it is quite a full system!
Spend time looking into options for cases and decide how many (if any at all) you want to incorporate into your language’s system. For any case you want to incorporate, brainstorm ideas for lexical sources for where those case-markers might come from. A good source for inspiration for lexical sources is The World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. The Appendix listing Target > Source is especially helpful!