# Cases



## raptor

Hello, and sorry if this isn't the right place to post this question;

I'm trying to learn the case system (not a specific language, but the general way it would work - if that works at all), and I'm wondering if I've done these right:


*I gave my cat to your sister's friend Doug.* 
I.nom past-give cat I.poss.acc sister you.poss.gen friend.dat Doug 

*"The spirit of the dead is ushered on to the higher horizon at the Transition Ceremony." *
Spirit.nom.def dead.gen.def be-past usher_on Higher_Horizon.all.def Transition-Ceremony.loc_at.def 

*I went to the road your sister’s house is on, but no one was selling pie.* 
I.nom past-go road.all.def that sister you.poss.gen house.dat be.loc_at, but no-one past-be-sell-gerund pie.acc 

Thanks!

---
poss - possessive 
def - definite article 
all - allative 
loc_at - locative (under section of English equivalent AT)


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## Frank78

Well English is usually a bad example if you want to learn how a case system works or what is it good for. It´s main advantage is that you don´t need a certain word order (like S-V-O in English). It´s characterised by flexing articles and adjectives.

I just can give you an English German contradiction.

The man throws the dog the ball..

The man - Nom.
the dog - Dat.
the ball - Acc.

The only switch in word order you can do in English is by "to"

The man throws the ball to the dog.

In German:

"_Der Mann_ wirft _dem Hund_ _den Ball_ zu" ("wirft...zu" - the verb - to throw)

Der Mann (the man) - Nom. 
Dem Hund (the dog)- Dat.
den Ball (the ball)- Acc.

Actually this is the same as in English, but there are other options as well. 

Dem Hund wirft der Mann den Ball zu. (dative - nominative - accusative)
Den Ball wirft der Mann dem Hund zu (accusative - nominative - dative)

As you know English has just one article so it can´t work like in a case language. In German every case has it´s articles: 3 genders + 4 cases.


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## Joannes

raptor said:


> Hello, and sorry if this isn't the right place to post this question;
> 
> I'm trying to learn the case system (not a specific language, but the general way it would work - if that works at all), and I'm wondering if I've done these right:
> 
> 
> *I gave my cat to your sister's friend Doug.*
> I.nom past-give cat I.poss.acc sister you.poss.gen friend.dat Doug
> 
> *"The spirit of the dead is ushered on to the higher horizon at the Transition Ceremony." *
> Spirit.nom.def dead.gen.def be-past usher_on Higher_Horizon.all.def Transition-Ceremony.loc_at.def
> 
> *I went to the road your sister’s house is on, but no one was selling pie.*
> I.nom past-go road.all.def that sister you.poss.gen house.dat be.loc_at, but no-one past-be-sell-gerund pie.acc
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> ---
> poss - possessive
> def - definite article
> all - allative
> loc_at - locative (under section of English equivalent AT)


It's a bit of weird assignment you've given yourself but let's see. Say we would be dealing with a language that formally marks the cases you mentioned. You would get this kind of structures more or less (constituent order is irrelevant and I didn't consider definiteness of nominals, because it's complicated and it doesn't matter now):

(1) [1SG.NOM] [*give*.PST] [*cat*.ACC<=1SG.GEN] [*friend*.DAT<=*sister*.GEN<=2SG/PL.GEN]
(But in many languages possessive adjectives will be used to indicate 1SG.GEN etc. and those will often concord in case with their head nouns (in this case ACC for *cat* and DAT for *sister*), take German *deinem* 'your.DAT' for example.

(2) [*spirit*.NOM<=*dead*.PL.GEN] [*usher*.PRS.PASS] [*horizon*.ALL<=*high*.COM] [*transition-ceremony*.LOC]

(3) [1SG.NOM] [*go*.PST] [*road*.ALL<=*house*.LOC<=*sister*.GEN<=2SG/PL.GEN] [*but*] [*no-one*.NOM] [*sell*.PST.PROG] [*pie*.ACC]


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## raptor

Thanks!

Before I thought that a certain case could only be used once per phrase, but I see the genitive being used on 'sister' and the 'your' referring to her.

Would you be able to suggest some good websites or books on cases and their implementation? (examples from realworld languages would be ideal - not just attempted transliterations of English sentences like I've done )

To be honest, I used English examples because I'm working on making a constructed language, and I'm considering the case structure for the grammar.  Real languages would be very helpful in analyzing their use in order to make one that flows smoothly and naturally.

raptor


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## karuna

*



			I went to the road (that) your sister’s house is on, but no one was selling pie.
		
Click to expand...

*


> I.nom past-go road.all.def that sister you.poss.gen house.dat be.loc_at, but no-one past-be-sell-gerund pie.acc


_house _is in the nominative case because it is really a part of a subordinate clause. 

But you can't apply this for any other real languages because the logic by which cases are used often are unique to each language that are not easily predictable. And that's not only because each language have different set of cases. For example, in Latvian often the genitive case is used instead of accusative. In English "We believe in God" it could be said that "in God" in the locative case. In Latvian only the dative case makes sense – _es ticu Dievam. _


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## MarX

Frank78 said:


> Well English is usually a bad example if you want to learn how a case system works or what is it good for. It´s main advantage is that you don´t need a certain word order (like S-V-O in English). It´s characterised by flexing articles and adjectives.
> 
> I just can give you an English German contradiction.
> 
> The man throws the dog the ball..
> 
> The man - Nom.
> the dog - Dat.
> the ball - Acc.
> 
> The only switch in word order you can do in English is by "to"
> 
> The man throws the ball to the dog.
> 
> In German:
> 
> "_Der Mann_ wirft _dem Hund_ _den Ball_ zu" ("wirft...zu" - the verb - to throw)
> 
> Der Mann (the man) - Nom.
> Dem Hund (the dog)- Dat.
> den Ball (the ball)- Acc.
> 
> Actually this is the same as in English, but there are other options as well.
> 
> Dem Hund wirft der Mann den Ball zu. (dative - nominative - accusative)
> Den Ball wirft der Mann dem Hund zu (accusative - nominative - dative)
> 
> As you know English has just one article so it can´t work like in a case language. In German every case has it´s articles: 3 genders + 4 cases.


With only masculine singular having the opposition between accusative and nominative.
Plural, neuter singular and feminine singular don't distinguish accusative and nominative (die, das, and die).


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## trance0

MarX said:


> With only masculine singular having the opposition between accusative and nominative.
> Plural, neuter singular and feminine singular don't distinguish accusative and nominative (die, das, and die).




This is true for substantives(where masculine gender nouns represent a relative majority anyway), however, there are additional differences between nominative and accusative with pronouns where gender is not explicitly expressed or important: jemand vs. jemanden, niemand vs. niemanden, ich vs. mich, du vs. dich, wir vs. uns, wer vs. wen and so on.


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## berndf

Joannes said:


> (1) [1SG.NOM] [*give*.PST] [*cat*.ACC<=1SG.GEN] [*friend*.DAT<=*sister*.GEN<=2SG/PL.GEN]
> (But in many languages possessive adjectives will be used to indicate 1SG.GEN etc. and those will often concord in case with their head nouns (in this case ACC for *cat* and DAT for *sister*), take German *deinem* 'your.DAT' for example.


Your notation has the problem of equating genitive and possessive pronouns which is not correct. Take e.g. "my" and "your". Both are possessive but only "your" is genitive (because "sister" is genitive) while "my" is accusative (because "cat" is accusative). 

I think the original notation is correct. Just the genitive marker is missing for "sister" and the dative marker for "Doug".


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## brian

I agree with karuna that it's going to be difficult to come up with a case system for a made-up language based on English, which has almost no cases except for pronouns.

The biggest problem is that you can't tell what the "case" of a noun is based on a verb in English because 1) English has no real cases, except a sort of objective case for pronouns, and 2) languages differ--rather arbitrarily--as to what case a verb takes.

Examples:

English: _He helped *me*._ <-- seems like *accusative* since it's dir. obj. of "help"
German: _Er hat *mir* geholfen._ <-- *dative*
Greek: _*Με* βοήθησε._ <-- *accusative

*English: _I asked *him *something._ <-- seems *dative* since "something" is dir. obj. (acc.)
German: _Ich fragte *ihn* etwas. _<-- *accusative* (double acc.)
Italian: *Gli*_ ho chiesto qualcosa._ <-- more *dative*-ish, _gli = a lui_
French: _Je *lui* ai demandé quelque chose._ <-- *dative*-ish, same as Italian
Latin: _*Eum* aliquid rogavi._ <-- *accusative* (double acc.)

English: _I remember human weakness._ <-- *accusative*-ish
Latin: _Humanae infirmit*atis* memim._ (Liv. xxx. 31. 6, source) <-- *genitive*

I'm sure there are many more, and better, examples out there, but I think you get the idea.


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## raptor

> I agree with karuna that it's going to be difficult to come up with a case system for a made-up language based on English, which has almost no cases except for pronouns


 
I agree with you both, but fortunately  my conlang isn't based on English.  Of course the vocabulary is translated into English on the lexicon, but the majority doesn't even resemble English.  For the moment (likely to change) the prepositions are based on Hungarian ([prep]'[noun]), the word order is based on Romance languages, and the grammar/morphology influenced from various Indo-European languages, with lots of my own ideas thrown in, especially for word formation.

So if I implement cases, the prepositions would become the case suffices, and I guess I can come up with my own specifics for how the cases themselves work, and their derivatives.

Why would "in God" be locative?  Dative does make sense to me, as locative would indicate movement or spacial relationship, so unless the grammar had an 'unspecified locale' locative subcase, it wouldn't make sense to me.  (In English, the verb is actually "to believe in," not just "to believe," so if that's where the locative is coming from, I don't think it's a prepostion in English.)

Does anyone have a good online resource for learning cases?  Specific examples/languages would be good, especially if I could compare them to each other in order to get a better overall idea of the possibilities and ways they work.

Thanks!


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## Joannes

berndf said:


> Your notation has the problem of equating genitive and possessive pronouns which is not correct. Take e.g. "my" and "your". Both are possessive but only "your" is genitive (because "sister" is genitive) while "my" is accusative (because "cat" is accusative).


Didn't I direct to that problem myself? (though I now see I made a mistake on the *sister* part )

We're speaking general terms. This is a semantic analysis that makes sense if you don't presuppose the language in question to have possessive adjectives that agree with their head nouns, or no possessive pronouns at all.


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## ireney

I also agree: Consider the following (Brian's post gave me the idea)

*Του* ζήτησα το βιβλίο
Ζήτησα το βιβλίο *από αυτόν*
They both translate as I asked him for the book and you'd expect, since they're both Modern Greek, that the "for him" part would be in the same case. However, since the format changes (in the first one "for him" is the indirect object without a preposition in front of it) the case change (Genitive and accusative respectively).

Another example is the verb ακούω. In ancient Greek, if you wanted to say 
"I listen to someone" you'd say  ἀκούω *τινός*, genitive. In modern Greek, it's ακούω *κάποιον*, accusative.

Note also that not all languages have all these cases and some such as Finnish have more.
The only general thing that can be said (at least for IE languages with which I am more familiar), is that the the subject of the _sentence_ is in nominative and accusative is the "main" case for the object. When adverbial complements come into play all bets are off.


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## berndf

Joannes said:


> This is a semantic analysis that makes sense if you don't presuppose the language in question to have possessive adjectives that agree with their head nouns, or no possessive pronouns at all.


In IE languages which have cases, possessive adjectives *do* agree in case with their head nouns. On the other hand, there are genitive pronouns which are not possessive (in this thread we just discussed an example of a non-possessive genitive personal pronoun in Old English). Hence, genitive personal pronouns have to be distinguished from possessive pronouns/adjectives.


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## phosphore

brian8733 said:


> English: _He helped *me*._ <-- seems like *accusative* since it's dir. obj. of "help"
> German: _Er hat *mir* geholfen._ <-- *dative*
> Greek: _*Με* βοήθησε._ <-- *accusative*
> Serbian: Pomogao *mi *je. *(dative)*
> Pomogao *me *je. *(accusative)*
> 
> 
> English: _I asked *him *something._ <-- seems *dative* since "something" is dir. obj. (acc.)
> German: _Ich fragte *ihn* etwas. _<-- *accusative* (double acc.)
> Italian: *Gli*_ ho chiesto qualcosa._ <-- more *dative*-ish, _gli = a lui_
> French: _Je *lui* ai demandé quelque chose._ <-- *dative*-ish, same as Italian
> Latin: _*Eum* aliquid rogavi._ <-- *accusative* (double acc.)
> Serbian: Pitao sam *ga* nešto. *(accusative)*
> Tražio sam *mu* nešto. *(dative)*
> 
> 
> English: _I remember human weakness._ <-- *accusative*-ish
> Latin: _Humanae infirmit*atis* memim._ (Liv. xxx. 31. 6, source) <-- *genitive*
> Serbian: Sećam se ljudsk*ih* slabost*i*. *(genitive)*
> Pamtim ljudsk*e* slabost*i*. *(accusative)*


 
As you can see, different but related verbs (or even one verb) are used with different cases in the same language; one could hardly prove anything comparing translations of a same sentence in different languages.


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## brian

phosphore said:


> As you can see, different but related verbs (or even one verb) are used with different cases in the same language; one could hardly prove anything comparing translations of a same sentence in different languages.



Sure one can. We were (or _I_ was) proving that the cases a verb (or preposition, etc.) takes are indeed quite arbitrary and independent of the particular concept, so that to analyze a more or less case-less grammar like that of English really cannot help decide what case to use for what verbs in some other language. You helped prove this point just now.


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## Joannes

berndf said:


> In IE languages which have cases, possessive adjectives *do* agree in case with their head nouns. On the other hand, there are genitive pronouns which are not possessive (in this thread we just discussed an example of a non-possessive genitive personal pronoun in Old English). Hence, genitive personal pronouns have to be distinguished from possessive pronouns/adjectives.


Yeah so? I mean, you're right but what does it really matter here? We didn't really start off from any IE case system did we? I just did a semantic analysis and indicated which of the mentioned cases you would typically expect for which constituents based on their meaning in the sentence. Structural things like the difference between possessive adjectives or case-inflected pronouns can disturb that, just as well as many other structural features. (And I thought of this one as too important enough to add a note on it -- but I will not admit that my analysis 'equates between genitive and possessive pronouns' because it doesn't want to suggest neither! )


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## phosphore

brian8733 said:


> Sure one can. We were (or _I_ was) proving that *the cases a verb* (or preposition, etc.) *takes are indeed quite arbitrary and independent of the particular concept,* so that to analyze a more or less case-less grammar like that of English really cannot help decide what case to use for what verbs in some other language. You helped prove this point just now.


 
I do not think they really are: it is just that two verbs from two different languages, one being usually used in the same context in one language as the other verb in the other, do not match completely. If you looked more at grammar and less at the contemporary use of different verbs in some particular languages, there has to be some universal logic since these are all Indo-European languages.


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## MarX

trance0 said:


> This is true for substantives(where masculine gender nouns represent a relative majority anyway), however, there are additional differences between nominative and accusative with pronouns where gender is not explicitly expressed or important: jemand vs. jemanden, niemand vs. niemanden, ich vs. mich, du vs. dich, wir vs. uns, wer vs. wen and so on.


English also has such case opposition in pronouns other than *you*: I vs. me, we vs. us. etc.
As for German, there's a notable tendecy of merging jemand-jemanden-jemandem-jemandes and niemand-niemanden-niemandem-niemandes into *jemand* and *niemand* respectively.


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## berndf

Joannes said:


> Yeah so? I mean, you're right but what does it really matter here? We didn't really start off from any IE case system did we? I just did a semantic analysis and indicated which of the mentioned cases you would typically expect for which constituents based on their meaning in the sentence. Structural things like the difference between possessive adjectives or case-inflected pronouns can *disturb* that, just as well as many other structural features. (And I thought of this one as too important enough to add a note on it -- but I will not admit that my analysis 'equates between genitive and possessive pronouns' because it doesn't want to suggest neither! )


Prossessive is *only one* of the *semantics* of the genitive. *Not* to distinguish systematically between the two is highly confusing and disturbing.


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## karuna

phosphore said:


> I do not think they really are: it is just that two verbs from two different languages, one being usually used in the same context in one language as the other verb in the other, do not match completely. If you looked more at grammar and less at the contemporary use of different verbs in some particular languages, there has to be some universal logic since these are all Indo-European languages.



I am sure we can compare case systems of different IE languages by looking at their historical development. So, I have no problem to say that the genitive or the accusative etc. have the same basic functions in many languages.

However, the question remains, how do we know which case to apply for words in English sentence since this language has almost lost the morphological case distinction? Returning to the example, "I believe in God", where Raptor countered that "God" is more likely the dative than locative. But how can we ever know? As a rule the preposition "in" is seemingly used with nouns in locative but there is no exact proof for this sentence. The similar sentence in Russian _ya veryu v Boga _it is in the accusative. Actually it is morphologically the same as the genitive, which further serves the point here – I can only be sure about the noun case from morphology.

More detailed example: Latvian prepositions require nouns to be in certain cases. The preposition _no _(from) agrees with singular nouns in the genitive case and with plural nouns in the dative case. In the sentence _Es esmu no X _(I am from X) the case of the X is undetermined until we know its number. 

Also in some sentences the nouns and pronouns assume different cases: For example, _Man jāsatiek draugs _(I have to meet the friend – nominative case) versus _Man jāsatiek tevi _(I have to meet you – accusative case). So, we can't prove the noun case by replacing the noun with the pronoun because some strange linguistic rules may be at work.

I am sure that such peculiarities may be found in other languages and by other noun features, for example, anime/inanimate distinction (Russian arguably does this), gender distinction or even more exotic properties.


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## trance0

MarX said:


> English also has such case opposition in pronouns other than *you*: I vs. me, we vs. us. etc.
> As for German, there's a notable tendecy of merging jemand-jemanden-jemandem-jemandes and niemand-niemanden-niemandem-niemandes into *jemand* and *niemand* respectively.



You are right, of course. However, in German you at least have a choice and when you want to emphasize something, you can often do it by changing just word order, while in English you usually have no such option(or you do, but you have to use a preposition in order for the sentence to be clear and it often sounds weird and/or unnatural). Additionaly, with nouns and verbs that demand a dative/and or accusative case, you can also distinguish what direct and what indirect object in a sentence is(even when accusative is morphologically the same as nominative), whereas in English you usually can`t do this (or at least not without the help of a preposition).

Compare the following:

Jemanden/Einen habe ich etwas gefragt.
Ich habe jemanden/einen etwas gefragt.
Gefragt habe ich jemanden/einen etwas.
Etwas habe ich jemanden/einen gefragt.
Ich habe etwas jemanden/einen gefragt.


Although you wouldn`t use all the above versions in everyday speech, they are at least theoretically and grammatically possible. In English you can`t change the word order in this manner.

With context(possible because of grammatical gender in German):

Die Katze frisst ein anderes Tier. Sie wird (von dem anderen Tier) fast vollkommen zerfressen.
Ein anderes Tier frisst eine Katze. Es wird (von der Katze) fast vollkommen zerfressen.

In relative sentences:

Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, das ich auch sehe.
Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, die ich auch sehe.
Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, die sehe ich auch.

Or for example: 

Die Frau, und keinen/niemanden anderen, sieht das Mädchen.
Die Frau sieht das Mädchen und keinen anderen.


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## Hulalessar

Is the word "case" not more properly used only where the function of a noun is indicated by it form?

In _Rex reginam amat_ we can say that _rex_ is the subject of the sentence and in the nominative case, and _reginam_ the object of the sentence and in the accusative case. Whilst in Latin the subject of a sentence must always be in the nominative case and the object in the accusative case, the nominative case does not always indicate the subject of a sentence nor the accusative the object.

In _The king loves the queen_ we can say that _king_ is the subject and _queen_ the object. We know this from the syntax and not from the morphology of either _king_ or _queen_. To suggest that _king_ is in the nominative case and _queen_ in the accusative case tells us nothing at all. At best it is saying that in English subject/nominative and object/accusative respectively are nothing more than interchangeable terms. It is simply trying to fit English into Latin Grammar.


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## MarX

trance0 said:


> You are right, of course. However, in German you at least have a choice and when you want to emphasize something, you can often do it by changing just word order, while in English you usually have no such option(or you do, but you have to use a preposition in order for the sentence to be clear and it often sounds weird and/or unnatural). Additionaly, with nouns and verbs that demand a dative/and or accusative case, you can also distinguish what direct and what indirect object in a sentence is(even when accusative is morphologically the same as nominative), whereas in English you usually can`t do this (or at least not without the help of a preposition).
> 
> Compare the following:
> 
> Jemanden/Einen habe ich etwas gefragt.
> Ich habe jemanden/einen etwas gefragt.
> Gefragt habe ich jemanden/einen etwas.
> Etwas habe ich jemanden/einen gefragt.
> Ich habe etwas jemanden/einen gefragt.
> 
> 
> Although you wouldn`t use all the above versions in everyday speech, they are at least theoretically and grammatically possible. In English you can`t change the word order in this manner.
> 
> With context(possible because of grammatical gender in German):
> 
> Die Katze frisst ein anderes Tier. Sie wird (von dem anderen Tier) fast vollkommen zerfressen.
> Ein anderes Tier frisst eine Katze. Es wird (von der Katze) fast vollkommen zerfressen.
> 
> In relative sentences:
> 
> Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, das ich auch sehe.
> Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, die ich auch sehe.
> Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, die sehe ich auch.
> 
> Or for example:
> 
> Die Frau, und keinen/niemanden anderen, sieht das Mädchen.
> Die Frau sieht das Mädchen und keinen anderen.


You're right. The relative flexibility of word order in German has more to do with the syntactical rules of the language itself than the presence of cases.

Your first examples show exactly that. Both jemanden/einen and etwas are accusative. Even if you use jemand instead of jemanden, you'll still have the relatively free word order compared to English.


As for the other examples:

"Die Katze frisst ein anderes Tier. Sie wird (von dem anderen Tier) fast vollkommen zerfressen."
Even a German would be confused by this sentence because one doesn't see any logical connection between the two sentences.

"Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, die ich auch sehe." and "Die Frau, und keinen/niemanden anderen, sieht das Mädchen." would also confuse native German speakers and I honestly don't think anybody would say that.

"Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, die sehe ich auch." fits more into a conversation. Even then, you would ask if the other person was referring to die Frau, das Mädchen (because it's seen as a sie), or both: 
-Die Frau sieht das Mädchen. Siehst du die auch?
-Welche denn? Das Mädchen? (Oder die beiden?)
-Na die Frau da!



Hulalessar said:


> Is the word "case" not more properly used only where the function of a noun is indicated by it form?
> 
> In _Rex reginam amat_ we can say that _rex_ is the subject of the sentence and in the nominative case, and _reginam_ the object of the sentence and in the accusative case. Whilst in Latin the subject of a sentence must always be in the nominative case and the object in the accusative case, the nominative case does not always indicate the subject of a sentence nor the accusative the object.
> 
> In _The king loves the queen_ we can say that _king_ is the subject and _queen_ the object. We know this from the syntax and not from the morphology of either _king_ or _queen_. To suggest that _king_ is in the nominative case and _queen_ in the accusative case tells us nothing at all. At best it is saying that in English subject/nominative and object/accusative respectively are nothing more than interchangeable terms. It is simply trying to fit English into Latin Grammar.


I agree. We're just trying to give raptor an idea of what "case" may mean through the "lens" of the English language.


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## brian

MarX said:
			
		

> "Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, die sehe ich auch." fits more into a conversation. Even then, you would ask if the other person was referring to die Frau, das Mädchen (because it's seen as a sie), or both:
> -Die Frau sieht das Mädchen. Siehst du die auch?
> -Welche denn? Das Mädchen? (Oder die beiden?)
> -Na die Frau da!



Actually, not quite. _Das Mädchen_, being neuter, requires the pronoun _es_. See here.


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## MarX

brian8733 said:


> Actually, not quite. _Das Mädchen_, being neuter, requires the pronoun _es_. See here.


Strictly speaking, yes. But this topic is discussed exactly in the thread you provided the link to, and everyone is welcome to follow it there.


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## berndf

MarX said:


> "Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, die ich auch sehe." and "Die Frau, und keinen/niemanden anderen, sieht das Mädchen." would also confuse native German speakers and I honestly don't think anybody would say that.
> 
> "Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, die sehe ich auch." fits more into a conversation. Even then, you would ask if the other person was referring to die Frau, das Mädchen (because it's seen as a sie), or both:
> -Die Frau sieht das Mädchen. Siehst du die auch?
> -Welche denn? Das Mädchen? (Oder die beiden?)
> -Na die Frau da!


I am afraid I have to disappoint you there. The only correct form is
_Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, das ich auch sehe._
This word order 
_Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, das sehe ich auch._
ist not only uncommon but plainly wrong.


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## MarX

berndf said:


> I am afraid I have to disappoint you there. The only correct form is
> _Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, das ich auch sehe._
> This word order
> _Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, das sehe ich auch._
> ist not only uncommon but plainly wrong.


Ermm.. in which regard did I have to be disappointed there?


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## berndf

MarX said:


> Ermm.. in which regard did I have to be disappointed there?


You wrote the opposite.
You wrote "would also confuse native German speakers and I honestly don't think anybody would say that" for the *correct* word order and
you wrote "fits more into a conversation" for the *wrong* word order.


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## trance0

berndf said:


> I am afraid I have to disappoint you there. The only correct form is
> _Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, das ich auch sehe._
> This word order
> _Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, das sehe ich auch._
> ist not only uncommon but plainly wrong.



The second sentence isn`t meant to be a relative sentence(das in it is not used as a relative pronoun, it is in fact used as a demonstrative pronoun: das sehe ich auch = her/that one I see too/as well.). Is the word order wrong in this usage as well?


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## berndf

trance0 said:


> The second sentence isn`t meant to be a relative sentence(das in it is not used as a relative pronoun, it is in fact used as a demonstrative pronoun: das sehe ich auch = her/that one I see too/as well.). Is the word order wrong in this usage as well?


Than you have to make it a separate sentence or use a conjunction, normally _und _(if it is not a relative pronoun many people would use _sie_ and not _das_):
_Die Frau sieht das Mädchen. Das/sie sehe ich auch._
_Die Frau sieht das Mädchen, und das/sie sehe ich auch._

The point is that German sentence structure while being more liberal than the sentence structure of English isn't all less liberal as suggested here. Sentence structure is used to distinguish between types of clauses, in this case between relative and and main clause.


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## Forero

The more prepositions you have, the less you need cases.  For example, if you have both _in_ and_ into_, you can use the same case with both.

On the other hand, if you want lots of cases, you can dispense with prepositions altogether and have for example one case of _house_ to mean "in the house" and another to mean "into the house".

If you want to borrow cases from existing languages, here is a starter list:

nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, locative, vocative, disjunctive, essive, instrumental, prepositional, elative, partitive, illative, instructive, abessive, adessive, allative, translative, comitative.

Perhaps the right dictionary would have examples of these.


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## trance0

I see no need for cases in a constructed language anyway. Their practicality/usefulness doesn`t outweigh the additional complexity associated with them, so I personally would do away with them if I tried to construct an artificial language for human communication.

P.S.: Unless one would create a case system similar to the one in Hungarian or Finish, where case formation is highly regular and the cases practically enable syntax (almost) without prepositions(which constitute a serious complexity in most other languages).


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## raptor

Of course the idea is to have the simplest structure possible, but I didn't like the way the prepositions looked.  And since the majority of them are too similar or basic to stand alone as words, cases looked much better.  To be honest, I never would have chosen cases in the first place except for the real-world base, and aesthetics.  Also, with a case structure like this, I can easily differentiate between definite/indefinite articles, and "this/that/those" etc (can't remember the name at the moment) without needing the actual article.

Essentially, the prepostions now exist as postpositions, except that some of them retain connotations of real-world cases.  It's not perfect yet as I'm still working on it, but eventually there will be an equilibrium where functionality and flow are balanced.


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## raptor

Is there any real difference between adpositions and cases (or is it just the other connotations that cases can have)?  For the sake of this question, I'm not referring to the linguistic cases (ie those that refer to the subject/objects etc - nominative, dative, accusative), but rather the locatives, genitive, temporal, and motion-related cases.

In this line of questioning, is there a boundary between adpositions and cases?

Thanks!


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## Frank06

Hi,


raptor said:


> I'm not referring to the linguistic cases (ie those that refer to the subject/objects etc - nominative, dative, accusative), but rather the locatives, genitive, temporal, and motion-related cases.


I don't understand what you mean by "linguistic cases". Does that mean there are also "non-linguistic cases"?
What does "linguistic" mean to you in this context?

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Hulalessar

raptor said:


> Is there any real difference between adpositions and cases?


 
See this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adposition

Scroll down to: Overlaps with other categories - case affixes.


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## raptor

> I don't understand what you mean by "linguistic cases". Does that mean there are also "non-linguistic cases"?
> What does "linguistic" mean to you in this context?


 
There probably aren't non-linguistic cases in this context.  However, I meant for 'linguistic' to refer to the cases that indicate subject, objects, etc, or the parts of speech, as opposed to the adpositional cases ie. referring to adpositions.  I suppose a better word for linguistic here would have been contextual, or maybe indicative, as they indicate context or parts of speech.

Thanks for the link, I know I've looked through it before, but I'll be sure to read it more thoroughly for the purposes of this topic/idea.


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## Hulalessar

raptor said:


> There probably aren't non-linguistic cases in this context. However, I meant for 'linguistic' to refer to the cases that indicate subject, objects, etc, or the parts of speech, as opposed to the adpositional cases ie. referring to adpositions. I suppose a better word for linguistic here would have been contextual, or maybe indicative, as they indicate context or parts of speech.


 
I think I can see what you are getting at. I do not think there is any qualitative difference between the nominative and accusative cases on the one hand and any other case on the other. It is easy for a native speaker of English to feel there is a difference since English nouns are not marked in any way (whether by case endings or by prepositions) to show if they are the subject or object of a sentence. From the perspective of English, rather than thinking of any case as equivalent to _adposition + noun_, it is best to think of it as offering a range of possibilities which include _noun + zero marking_.

Once outside Indo-European languages, the notion of equating nominative with the subject of a sentence and accusative with the object may break down. In some languages the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb are marked one way and the subject of a transitive verb another.


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## Sepia

raptor said:


> Hello, and sorry if this isn't the right place to post this question;
> 
> I'm trying to learn the case system (not a specific language, but the general way it would work - if that works at all), and I'm wondering if I've done these right:
> 
> 
> *I gave my cat to your sister's friend Doug.*
> I.nom past-give cat I.poss.acc sister you.poss.gen friend.dat Doug
> 
> *"The spirit of the dead is ushered on to the higher horizon at the Transition Ceremony." *
> Spirit.nom.def dead.gen.def be-past usher_on Higher_Horizon.all.def Transition-Ceremony.loc_at.def
> 
> *I went to the road your sister’s house is on, but no one was selling pie.*
> I.nom past-go road.all.def that sister you.poss.gen house.dat be.loc_at, but no-one past-be-sell-gerund pie.acc
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> ---
> poss - possessive
> def - definite article
> all - allative
> loc_at - locative (under section of English equivalent AT)


 
I think it is an interesting experiment you are about to conduct.

However, there isn't such a thing as "the case system". Remember, most of the examples given in this thread are based on languages with four or five cases. But even in modern day IE languages there can be more than five. Icelandic has, when I am not totally mistaken, seven cases.

Languages are also imaginable that have and need some 10-20 cases - suppose the language didn't have any prepositions. All the info that is transmitted by using the prepositions could just as well be contained in noun endings.


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## Athaulf

Hulalessar said:


> Once outside Indo-European languages, the notion of equating nominative with the subject of a sentence and accusative with the object may break down. In some languages the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb are marked one way and the subject of a transitive verb another.



You don't even have to go outside of IE languages to find such examples:
http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~siamakr/Kurdish/KURDICA/2001/3/ergativity.html


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## trance0

Sepia said:


> Icelandic has, when I am not totally mistaken, seven cases.



This is not true, Icelandic has *4 *cases, just like German. Languages that have the most cases are for example from the Ugro-Finnic(at least 14 cases) and Slavic/Baltic(up to 7 cases) groups.


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## Hulalessar

Athaulf said:


> You don't even have to go outside of IE languages to find such examples:
> http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~siamakr/Kurdish/KURDICA/2001/3/ergativity.html


 
I read the article. It is not entirely clear to me whether the ergativity is shown by changing the verb or marking nouns.


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## Sepia

trance0 said:


> This is not true, Icelandic has *4 *cases, just like German. Languages that have the most cases are for example from the Ugro-Finnic(at least 14 cases) and Slavic/Baltic(up to 7 cases) groups.


 

Whether you are right conc. Icelandic or not this at least proves that there is no logical rule for the no. of cases a language can have ...


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## trance0

Of course, Sepia. The number of cases has nothing to do with logic.


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