Case systems

This paper presents a cross-linguistic survey of case systems with several non-phonologically distributed markers of ergative case, based on a convenience sample of 65 languages from all over the world. It is shown that in most languages the distribution of ergative markers follows the referential hierarchy (local pronouns > non-local pronouns > proper names > kinship terms > humans > nonhumans > inanimates), thus complementing the much better known ergativity splits. Other types of conditioning of " multiple ergatives " include gender, such nominal morphosyntactic features as number and (in)definiteness, as well as clausal morphosyntactic features like tense/aspect, polarity and person of co-arguments. " Fluid " systems where the choice of ergative marker is based on semantic or pragmatic factors are attested as well. The article also discusses the implications of ergative allomorphy and ergative alternations for the typology of ergativity and case marking in general.

The present paper outlines a diachronic typology of changes in case systems within the Indo-European linguistic family. This study is written in the genre of identification and definition of problem: I will not attempt to offer an exhaustive treatment of the subject. Rather, I would like to draw attention to the importance of extensive research in this field in a diachronic typological perspective, which, in my opinion, may shed light on reconstruction of the linguistic prehistory of Eurasia. First, I will summarize some well-known facts about the Indo-European case and the variety of reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European case system, outlining the most important tendencies – without entering into a discussion of details of the individual case systems as well as into details of the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction. In the second part of the paper I will make an attempt to explain some of the attested developments of the original case system as resulting from contacts with non-Indo-European languages. This, in turn, will enable us to make some hypotheses about the case systems and, in general, structural types of some non-documented substrate languages which could have triggered these changes.

The main idea suggested in this paper is that subordinate clauses need to be Case licensed (namely embedded under KPs) and that various patterns of "fusion" within a layered functional skeleton obliterate that process. I will provide two types of empirical support for this proposal. First, I will show that this proposal correctly allows for nominal elements to stand in for a whole embedded clause (using the mechanism of Phrasal Spell-Out, Starke 2009; Neeleman & Szendroi 2007). Second, I will show that a wide range of typologically unrelated languages overtly exhibit Case marking on complementizers. Also, direct evidence against the identity of relative pronouns and complementizers / subordinators, possibly suggested -prima facie- by the layered model proposed here, will be provided here with the aid of data from Akkadian, Germanic languages and West Iranian languages.

"This work internally reconstructs the case system of Pre-Chukotko-Kamchatkan from the comparative reconstruction of Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan. Using the comparative and etymological dictionaries by Fortescue (2005), Mudrak (2000), and Zhukova & Kurebito (2004), I demonstrate that in many instances, groups of cases in Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan have developed from a single case. I outline the paths of grammaticization that led to the expanded case system in Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and I use semantic typology to support the plausibility of these developments. Examples of similar phenomena in other language families are used for comparison as well. I conclude that six grammatical cases (and a more regular case system) can be reconstructed in Pre-Chukotko-Kamchatkan, which has evolved and expanded into the comparatively reconstructed system of eleven cases in Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan presented in Fortescue (2005).


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The article deals with the problem of transformation of animacy and personhood in the situation of Interslavic language contact. The aim of the present paper is to identify what kind of changes category of animacy (personhood) have undergone in several island dialects. This problem is considered on the material of Polish and Czech (primarily immigrant) dialects and Ruthenian idioms that are also in the situation of language island. The data of immigrant dialects were consistently compared with the dialects in the original territory. The data of each idiom were considered against the background of West and East Slavic language landscape. The main trend in the development of the grammar of the island dialect in the surrounding of the closely related language is to level the asymmetry between grammar system of this dialect and the system of dominant language. The ACC.PL=GEN.PL syncretism, that is the main marker of animacy (or of personhood), has a different coverage of vocabulary in Slavic languages. In the island dialects the syncretism tends to spread to those groups of lexemes, for which it is characteristic in the surrounding language. In some idioms the spread of the ACC.PL=GEN.PL syncretism occurs without foreign influence.

В статье рассматриваются некоторые проблемные случаи падежного маркирования в осетинском языке: групповая флексия, управление предлога ӕнӕ ‘без’, дифференцированное маркирование прямого дополнения, употребление форм местоимения кӕрӕдзи ‘друг друга’ в иронском диалекте в позиции посессора и прямого объекта. Показано, что выбор падежа в этих конструкциях определяется структурой парадигмы зависимой лексемы. Для объяснения распределения словоформ в этих синтаксическим контекстах предлагается разделить падеж в осетинском языке на две категории: «морфологический падеж» (МП), приписываемый словоформам, который состоит всего из двух граммем, ректуса и обликвуса, и «групповой падеж» (ГП), приписываемый именным группам, к которому относятся все традиционно выделяемые косвенные падежи. МП соответствует категории падежа в языках, не допускающих групповой флексии, например в русском и латинском, ГП – падежным граммемам, допускающим групповое оформление, как, например, в тюркских языках. Сосуществование двух таких категорий в пределах одного языка может свидетельствовать о том, что их следует различать и в типологической перспективе. Данные осетинского языка сопоставляются с аналогичными явлениями в других языках: восточноармянском, индо-арийских, калмыцком, тохарском А. Анализ формализуется в терминах лексико-функциональной грамматики.

This paper deals with one of the aspects of the diachronic study of case, variation and competition of two or more cases in some particular function(s). The paper studies both formal parameters (markedness of case forms, interaction between declensional types) and functional features (overlapping of case semantics, semantic roles encoded, semantic specificity of cases) relevant for
case competition. On the basis of evidence from languages with well-attested documented history, I outline possible approaches to the study of a tentative hierarchy of parameters that play an important role for the choice of case in the situation of competition and can be used to make plausible suggestions on the
outcome of case competition.

While the semantic role instrument is uniformly encoded through the
instrumental case (or cases that replaced it, such as the Latin ablative or the
Greek dative) in ancient Indo-European (IE) languages, cause is variously
encoded through plain cases or adpositional phrases. Comparison allows
reconstructing a similar situation for Proto-Indo-European (PIE) as well. In
particular, one can reconstruct cause expressions involving the plain
instrumental, the plain ablative, and the adverb *pró, which, most likely,
already had an adpositional function in the proto-language. It is assumed
that cases and adverbs/adpositions originally had a spatial meaning, and that
abstract meanings came about through metaphoric extension. In the case of
the ablative and of *pró in cause expressions, some common patterns of
semantic extension are visible (from source/origin to cause: the cause of a
situation is conceived as its origin; from location to cause: a cause is
conceived as an entity which constrains a situation by being placed in front
of it). The instrumental case is traditionally thought as having originated as
a comitative. While extension from comitative to instrument is based on the
well-known ‘Companion metaphor’, an earlier local meaning of the PIE
instrumental case cannot be reconstructed easily.

The article argues against the traditional structuralist conception of grammatical categories as minimally binary oppositions and proposes to treat a variety of unrelated languages as possessing just one case. Two types of “monocasual systems” are distinguished: (1) the ones where the only morphologically overt case is opposed to a default form which is regarded as lacking case (Persian); and (2) the ones where the single morphologically overt case is in complementary distribution with the “head marking” of grammatical relations in the verb (Yimas). This logic is also extended to richer case systems, some of which I propose to analyze as containing a “caseless” form opposed to an array of overt genuine cases (Ket, Diegueño).

در زبان اوستایی، گاه حالت ازی برای کدگذاری کارکردهای حالت بایی به کار رفته است و گاه حالت بایی برای کدگذاری کارکردهای حالت ازی. این دو حالت در شمار حالت¬هایی هستند که نقش¬های معنایی را کدگذاری می¬کنند. حالت ازی در شمار حالت¬های مکانی است و کارکرد اصلی آن کدگذاری مفاهیم خاستگاه، جایگاه و مسیر است. حالت بایی در شمار حالت¬های غیرمکانی است و کارکرد اصلی آن کدگذاری مفاهیم ابزار، همراهی، روش، سبب و عامل در ساخت مجهول است. ازی و بایی در سلسله مراتب حالت در آخرین جایگاه قرار گرفته¬اند و از یکدیگر متمایز نیستند. در این مقاله، با بررسی شواهدی از زبان¬ اوستایی، مشخص شده است که این دو حالت چندمعنا هستند و از نظر کارکرد معنایی با یکدیگر هم¬پوشانی دارند؛ به بیانی دیگر، می¬توانند نقش یکدیگر را بر عهده گیرند و همانند یکدیگر رفتار کنند. به همین سبب، در زبان اوستایی جایگزین یکدیگر شده و در زبان فارسی باستان با یکدیگر ادغام شده¬اند. حالت ازی علاوه بر
نقش¬معنایی خاستگاه، جایگاه و مسیر، نقش¬های معنایی روش و سبب را کدگذاری کرده است و حالت بایی نیز علاوه بر نقش¬های معنایی همراهی، ابزار، سبب و عامل ساخت مجهول، نقش¬های معنایی خاستگاه، مسیر و جایگاه را نشان داده است. برای شناخت گسترة معنایی و چندمعنایی این دو حالت، انگارة معنایی آنها ترسیم شده است.

In this master’s thesis, an attempt is made to analyze the case systems of the Greek and Turkish language (Turkish of Turkey). The purpose is both to offer a detailed presentation and description of the case systems of both languages, and applications and teaching methods for their instruction as a foreign language. Initially a presentation of the grammatical category of case takes place followed by a detailed description of the Greek and Turkish case systems. During the contrastive analysis, an effort is made to highlight the similarities of both systems and even more so the divergences we have identified. A typical example of divergence is the difficulty that the Turkish-speaking student will face in distinguishing the locative (-DA) and the dative case [-(y)A], as in Greek both are rendered using the preposition σε (=to). Ιn the final part, original exercises for both languages are listed, which aim to help the students understand the case systems and where the two languages diverge as it is there that usually students encounter difficulties.

This article deals with the ways in which non-lexical core arguments can be expressed in various languages. It tries to devise a typological hierarchy for the different types and endeavours to place Romance within this hierarchy. An analysis of Basque verbal markers as cross-reference morphemes introduces the subject with a language radically different from central IE. Using Nichols’ (1986 & 1992) typological differentiation between head-marking and dependent-marking languages as its basis, a typological sub-parameter of “clausal head-marking vs. clausal dependent-marking” is suggested which is shown to correspond to two radically different types of clausal co-reference: (1) agreement (concord) and (2) cross-reference. This terminology is then used to describe and explain an ongoing syntactic change in which Spanish object clitics have evolved into obligatory verbal markers closely resembling those of Basque. Their conventional analysis as “agreement markers” is questioned and Spanish is shown to be moving towards a clausal head-marking language in which all core-arguments of the sentence have to be expressed by verbal affixes, while nominal and pronominal argument realisations become mere appositions outside the sentence core. The traditional concept of an emerging new paradigm of “object conjugation” is rejected.

We argue that subject-like obliques of the impersonal construction show behavioral properties of syntactic subjects in Old Germanic, contrary to standard assumptions (Cole et al. 1980). Subject tests, including control infinitives, reveal that subject-like obliques in Old and Early Middle English, Old Swedish, and Old Norse-Icelandic exhibit behavioral properties of subjects, as they do in Modern Icelandic and Faroese. We also present new data from Modern German, illustrating the same syntactic behavior of corresponding arguments in that language. Thus, we conclude that subject-like obliques exhibit behavioral properties of syntactic subjects from the earliest attested Germanic period onwards. Our findings contradict the standard view that these arguments were objects, which gradually acquired subject properties. We show that data from Gothic intended to support the standard view has been misinterpreted. Given the validity of our findings there are no grounds for reconstructing a stage at which subject-like obliques were objects in Germanic.

This paper aims to show to which extent some Indo-European languages – namely Hittite, Tocharian, Ancient Greek and Lithuanian – encode the semantic function of DIRECTION: these languages have the peculiarity of using specific morphological markers other than the accusative case, which was the morphological case covering this function in Indo-European. Such forms are not etymologically related to each other and the extent to which they are embedded into paradigms is remarkably different. We will see that only Hittite encodes the directive function as autonomous morphological case. However the Hittite directive case shows some irregularities in its behavior: a scalar hypothesis will be proposed as explanation. Furthermore the description of such a case will be compared with the corresponding forms in the other mentioned languages, by underlining similarities and differences and specifying their degree of grammaticalization.

We argue that subject-like obliques of the impersonal construction show behavioral properties of syntactic subjects in Old Germanic, contrary to standard assumptions (Cole et al. 1980). Subject tests, including control infinitives, reveal that subject-like obliques in Old and Early Middle English, Old Swedish, and Old Norse-Icelandic exhibit behavioral properties of subjects, as they do in Modern Icelandic and Faroese. We also present new data from Modern German, illustrating the same syntactic behavior of corresponding arguments in that language. Thus, we conclude that subject-like obliques exhibit behavioral properties of syntactic subjects from the earliest attested Germanic period onwards. Our findings contradict the standard view that these arguments were objects, which gradually acquired subject properties. We show that data from Gothic intended to support the standard view has been misinterpreted. Given the validity of our findings there are no grounds for reconstructing a st...

Free relatives in Moksha don’t follow matching requirements strictly. Mismatches are allowed, if a FR corresponds to the subject or to the direct object position in the main clause, or if the FR is in the indirect object position and the case of a wh-phrase is structural. I claim that this pattern can be derived if lexical cases are assigned earlier than structural cases and provide further evidence for this split by showing that other operations can apply between the assignment of different cases.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the diachronic development of case systems is the sheer multitude of sources for new cases. However, the vast majority of cases are created by various word classes grammaticalized into postpositions or particles, which are then reinterpreted as nominal inflections (Harris & Campbell 1995). The breadth of difference is in which word classes or meanings are the source of new cases. In this paper, I demonstrate that there appear to be other " recipes " that rely on the interaction of several parts of the grammar. Specifically, that nouns incorporated into motion verbs and case marked as subordinate clauses became the lative cases present in the Chukotian languages (Koryak, Alutor, Kerek, Chukchi).

The elucidated structure of asperjinone (1), a natural product isolated from thermophilic Aspergillus terreus, was revised using the expert system Structure Elucidator. The reliability of the revised structure (2) was confirmed using 180 structures containing the (3,3-dimethyloxiran-2-yl)methyl fragment (3) as a basis for comparison and whose chemical shifts contradict the suggested structure (1)

Structure elucidation using 2D NMR data and application of traditional methods of structure elucidation is known to fail for certain problems. In this work it is shown that Computer-Assisted Structure Elucidation (CASE) methods are capable of solving such problems. We conclude that it is now impossible to evaluate the capabilities of novel NMR experimental techniques in isolation from expert systems developed for processing fuzzy, incomplete and contradictory information obtained from 2D NMR spectra.

Balochi, a contemporary language of the Iranian (Ir.) branch of Indo-European languages, is spoken in Western Pakistan, South Western Afghanistan, South Eastern Iran and some other countries by several millions of people. While many Balochi dialects pattern ergatively in the PAST domain, many sentences show deviant constructions. These patterns and their combination in one and the same language are interesting from a typological point of view; they are the topic of this paper.
The approach is comparative one, contrasting Balochi dialects with each other, and with data from earlier Iranian languages.

"Although research on Balochi has been done for about one hundred years, there is no agreement yet on the number of cases in Balochi.2 Opinions have varied from two cases, three, four and five, to six and up to eight cases (GILBERTSON 1923:18). The terminology and the function of cases assumed has differed accordingly.
Given the variation among Balochi dialects, it is possible a priori that the nominal system differs according to the dialect involved. So the discussion presents a conspectus of the data hitherto gathered on the cases in the individual dialects, also addressing the various views expressed on these. The focus is an analysis of the synchronic function of the cases by specifically looking at the marking of the agent in ergative constructions (if any), the (intransitive) subject, the direct and indirect objects, and at the case used with prepositions and for adverbial functions.
The conclusion investigates whether or not the nominal systems of the dialects can be interpreted as one system, i.e. whether we can speak of one grammar applying to all Balochi dialects in the field of the nominal system."

The Balochi dialect spoken in Turkmenistan possesses a case which is not seen in most other Balochi dialects. It has local/directive function, and its marker is a suffix that shows the oblique case marker suffixed to the genitive ending. The “locative” is also found in the Balochi dialect of Afghanistan, but here, the local deixis appears to always refer to a person. I argue that the locative may be interpreted within a typological framework implying that local deixis referring to persons is blocked in some languages. Instead, these languages use periphrastic constructions of the type “at a person's [place]”, as do English (e.g. at the baker's) and Old Georgian, among others. In Turkmenistan Balochi, areal influence from Russian and Turkmen, which have a separate locative case, may have played a role in the generalisation of the locative to include inanimates as well.

Structure elucidation using 2D NMR data and application of traditional methods of structure elucidation are known to fail for certain problems. In this work, it is shown that computer-assisted structure elucidation methods are capable of solving such problems. We conclude that it is now impossible to evaluate the capabilities of novel NMR experimental techniques in isolation from expert systems developed for processing fuzzy, incomplete and contradictory information obtained from 2D NMR spectra.

This paper deals with one of the aspects of the diachronic study of case, variation and competition of two or more cases in some particular function(s). The paper studies both formal parameters (markedness of case forms, interaction between declensional types) and functional features (overlapping of case semantics, semantic roles encoded, semantic specificity of cases) relevant for case competition. On the basis of evidence from languages with well-attested documented history, I outline possible approaches to the study of a tentative
hierarchy of parameters that play an important role for the choice of case in the situation of competition and can be used to make plausible suggestions on the outcome of case competition.

This chapter examines the phenomenon of ergativity in Inuktitut, with particular focus on the manifestations of ergativity in the case system and the agreement morphology of the language. While the ergative-absolutive case alignment in Inuktitut is o en presented in the literature in the classic frame of an ergative-marked agent and absolutive-marked patient, data from ditransitives and causatives are used to highlight the structural nature of absolutive case assignment. Further indicative of the syntactic nature of ergativity, the agreement morphology in the language is shown to follow an ergative pattern insofar as the exponents of patient phi-features in transitives also index the subjects of intransitives.  e use of the antipassive construction as a type of differential object marking for indefiniteness is also discussed.