Languages that mark case, but not on nouns?
Posted: 2019-12-03, 0:30
German has an unusual form of case marking. It has four cases (with a fair amount of syncretism), but only the genitive is ever really marked on nouns. Normally, the case marking falls on the article. In absence of that, it falls on the adjective. Pronouns also inflect for case (personal pronouns though are highly irregular). So, what happens if you have a noun that has no article or adjective? Well, then it just gets no marking. This is what happens with proper nouns all the time, though other things like uncountable nouns and nouns with numbers also go unmarked.
Thinking about it, if a language with this type of indirect case marking was to mark case on everything, it would end up rather complicated rather fast. Proper and uncountable nouns would have to receive articles or some kind of particle of their own. Worse yet, all the possible numbers would have to have their own forms! That alone could, obviously, get out of hand rather quickly. I don't think I've ever even heard of a natural language that marks case on number (with the possible exception of Russian, but only the numbers one, two, and three can take case).
Another weird thing is I've never heard of any natlang other than German that does this. Yeah, there's languages that use isolating particles, but I'm talking about inflectional marking here. Definite articles, indefinite articles, demonstratives, and sometimes adjectives are what take the case marking in a noun phrase. You simply can't have case without these (besides the genitive anyway, but the use of that has been diminishing, but truth be told, I don't think I've ever actually seen an isolated genitive noun in a sentence).
Are there any other languages with this strange indirect method for marking case? If so, are there languages where the marking is far more reliable? As I said, German nouns often just have to go without case marking since you can't actually mark any cases (besides the genitive, and the dative in a few dialects) directly on nouns; you can only do it on other elements in a noun phrase.
Thinking about it, if a language with this type of indirect case marking was to mark case on everything, it would end up rather complicated rather fast. Proper and uncountable nouns would have to receive articles or some kind of particle of their own. Worse yet, all the possible numbers would have to have their own forms! That alone could, obviously, get out of hand rather quickly. I don't think I've ever even heard of a natural language that marks case on number (with the possible exception of Russian, but only the numbers one, two, and three can take case).
Another weird thing is I've never heard of any natlang other than German that does this. Yeah, there's languages that use isolating particles, but I'm talking about inflectional marking here. Definite articles, indefinite articles, demonstratives, and sometimes adjectives are what take the case marking in a noun phrase. You simply can't have case without these (besides the genitive anyway, but the use of that has been diminishing, but truth be told, I don't think I've ever actually seen an isolated genitive noun in a sentence).
Are there any other languages with this strange indirect method for marking case? If so, are there languages where the marking is far more reliable? As I said, German nouns often just have to go without case marking since you can't actually mark any cases (besides the genitive, and the dative in a few dialects) directly on nouns; you can only do it on other elements in a noun phrase.