Unknown Grammatical Cases.

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Kota-Ebau
Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby Kota-Ebau » 2018-08-03, 18:17

Hello!
I've just created a new language called Kveldarkaita that is going to have 23 grammatical cases and the question is about two of them. I want to know the name of those grammatical cases and the problem is that those grammatical cases actually don't exist in any known language, so I'm searching for an expert in linguistics that could tell me how those cases should be named.
1st Case: it's used to talk about how much time ago did something happened. For example: "Twelve years ago" is "12 Hieþakigondi ("Hieþak" means "Years")".
2nd Case: it's used to talk about how much time is left for something to happen. For exaple: "In two days" is translated as "2 Stanakirondi ("Stanak" means "Days")".
Please if there's an expert in linguistics somewhere please try to answer my question.
Thanks.

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Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby linguoboy » 2018-08-03, 21:23

Kota-Ebau wrote:1st Case: it's used to talk about how much time ago did something happened. For example: "Twelve years ago" is "12 Hieþakigondi ("Hieþak" means "Years")".

Prenuncial (from Latin prae nunce "before now").

Kota-Ebau wrote:2nd Case: it's used to talk about how much time is left for something to happen. For exaple: "In two days" is translated as "2 Stanakirondi ("Stanak" means "Days")".

Postnuncial (from Latin post nunce "after now").
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

Kota-Ebau

Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby Kota-Ebau » 2018-08-03, 23:55

Thank you very much linguoboy!
That's what I was exactly searching for.
Thanks.

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Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby Linguaphile » 2018-08-04, 0:59

Kota-Ebau wrote:1st Case: it's used to talk about how much time ago did something happened. For example: "Twelve years ago" is "12 Hieþakigondi ("Hieþak" means "Years")".
2nd Case: it's used to talk about how much time is left for something to happen. For exaple: "In two days" is translated as "2 Stanakirondi ("Stanak" means "Days")".


Some semi-parallels from natural languages:

Mayan languages use a suffix to express this same idea. It isn't considered a case, but it works much the same way:
K'iche language (Guatemala): oxijïr = three days ago (ox = three; ijïr = "days-ago" suffix)
K'iche language (Guatemala): oxij = three days from now (ox = three; ij = "days from" suffix)

Poqomchi' langauge (Guatemala) waxaqijer = eight days ago (waxiqiib' = eight, ijer = "days ago" suffix)
Poqomchi' language (Guatemala) waxaqjeej = eight days from now (waxiqiib' = eight, jeej = "days from now" suffix)

Q'anjob'al language (Guatemala) lajuneji = ten days ago (lajun = ten, eji = "days ago" suffix)
Q'anjob'al language (Guatemala) lajunej = ten days from now (lajun = ten, ej = "days from now" suffix)

Tojolobal language (Mexico) 'oxeje = three days ago ('oxe = three, je = "days ago" suffix)
and so on.

There are also cases for relationships of "preceding" and "behind," although normally used for spatial relationships:
Antessive case - preceding or before something
Postessive case - position behind something

And terminative case for temporal or spatial relationships, meaning "until" (a given time) or "up to" (a given place):
Estonian language (Estonia) laupäevani = until Saturday (laupäeva = Saturday; ni = terminative case ending)
Estonian language (Estonia) jõeni = up to the river (jõe = river, ni = terminative case ending)
Võro language (Estonia) kuvvõniq = until six (kuvvõ = six; niq = terminative case ending)
Votic language (Russia) kassee päiväässaa = until this day (kassee päivää = this day; ssaa = terminative case ending)
Votic language (Russia) järvessaa = up to the lake (järve = lake, ssaa = terminative case ending)
Ingrian language (Russia) pühhässaa = until Sunday (pühhä = Sunday, ssaa = terminative case ending)
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

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Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby Lur » 2018-08-04, 14:52

Basque forms a terminative called noraino with a -raino-/raiñ/-raiño suffix as well :)
Geurea dena lapurtzen uzteagatik, geure izaerari uko egiteagatik.

Kota-Ebau

Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby Kota-Ebau » 2018-08-10, 14:26

Thank you all, now I need another case and again I don't know it's name:
It's function it's the same as the preposition "about" in English. An example could be: "We were just talking about tomorrow's exam". Another: "This interesting book is a tale about two children called Kotä and Kvodrɨn".
Thanks.

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Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby linguoboy » 2018-08-10, 14:38

Here's a question: How do you know these are really "cases" and not just suffixed postpositions?
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Kota-Ebau

Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby Kota-Ebau » 2018-08-10, 15:24

...
I'm not sure at all, but my conlang has got all that 33 suffixes because in many real languages, a single preposition (or postposition) can have some meanings that are completely odd to each other, and I don't like that. I'm just trying to find a real name for each function that can describe each of my suffixes, and prepositions or postpositions, both haven't got a name to make sense instantly about which morfological function they represent, but grammatical cases do. I think is more useful to assign a name to each grammatical function instead of having to explain each one... But I'm not an expert in linguistics.
And another question: I think I'm going to add other case to my language to complete 35. It's expressed as "instead of" in English and I think it's name could be "Adversative Case".
Thanks.

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Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby linguoboy » 2018-08-10, 15:41

Kota-Ebau wrote:...I'm not sure at all, but my conlang has got all that 33 suffixes because in many real languages, a single preposition (or postposition) can have some meanings that are completely odd to each other, and I don't like that. I'm just trying to find a real name for each function that can describe each of my suffixes, and prepositions or postpositions, both haven't got a name to make sense instantly about which morfological function they represent, but grammatical cases do. I think is more useful to assign a name to each grammatical function instead of having to explain each one... But I'm not an expert in linguistics.

I'm not an expert in linguistics (although I have formally studied it) and I feel the opposite. No terminology is specific enough to capture exactly how a case suffix (or adposition) is used in a particular language. The function of the "genitive case", for instance, varies substantially between languages, and this is even true of rarer cases like the "translative case" or the "postessive case". So just naming these functions and not explaining them or enumerating their uses isn't very useful.

Kota-Ebau wrote:And another question: I think I'm going to add other case to my language to complete 35. It's expressed as "instead of" in English and I think it's name could be "Adversative Case".

I think that works.

For "about", you could use "apropositive".
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

Kota-Ebau

Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby Kota-Ebau » 2018-08-10, 16:16

Thank you very much for the grammatical cases.
And about the other subject I have to recognise I didn't explained well.
What I was trying to say is that we should explain the grammatical function of each case and then use it's name instead of explaining partially again and again and again. It's like if I explain the Abesive Case and since then I just use the name "Abesive" because all people will know what I'm talking about, instead of not naming it and each time I want to say "Abesive" I would have to say "The case that is used for this and this and is equal to the English preposition "Without". So I think is better the first option. Sorry for not explaining well before.
Thanks.

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Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby linguoboy » 2018-08-10, 16:20

Kota-Ebau wrote:What I was trying to say is that we should explain the grammatical function of each case and then use it's name instead of explaining partially again and again and again. It's like if I explain the Abesive Case and since then I just use the name "Abesive" because all people will know what I'm talking about, instead of not naming it and each time I want to say "Abesive" I would have to say "The case that is used for this and this and is equal to the English preposition "Without". So I think is better the first option. Sorry for not explaining well before.

Do the case endings vary considerably according to the declension of the noun? Otherwise you could just name them by form, e.g. "the -kain suffix" or "the ending -òjr" in the same way that we say "without" or "the preposition instead of".
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

Kota-Ebau

Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby Kota-Ebau » 2018-08-10, 16:58

My cases are very similar in form to each other.
For example, all of them end with -en. There are many examples:
Locative: -enden(space)/-onden(time).
Adlative: -ilenden(space)/-ilonden(time).
Dative: -huren(human gender as accusative)/-daren(inhuman gender as accusative).
Abesive: -diben.
I don't really know if it's a good conlang, but I've got other specific declensions for other morfological categories and if I wrote them as I want my conlang would have become a mess!
For example:
Hi stetelm hian Skɨgaensen heŧoronden.
I am at my home now(at).
Everything is really organised so it's difficult to mix up, but at the same time it isn't natural at all.

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Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby linguoboy » 2018-08-10, 17:04

Kota-Ebau wrote:Dative: -huren(human gender as accusative)/-daren(inhuman gender as accusative).

You've lost me here. You have one case ending you use for both dative and accusative?
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby Kota-Ebau » 2018-08-10, 17:28

No, that's not...
Well, in my language, if you want to use Dative Case, is compulsory to use also Accusative but they are appart cases. What I meant, for example, this:
"I like to give presents to him".
Hi hudaren Köɨšadek kidetođ gebäyet.
Hi (I) hudaren (to him (Dative)) Köɨšadek (presents (Accusative)) kidetođ gebäyet (like to give).
-huren and -daren are just a derivation of "huden" (Accusative of "Hu" (He, She, It)) and "daden" (Accusative of "Da" (It)), because the Accusative declension is -den, but it can be modified by a plural, in which case the -den becomes -dek (as in Köɨšadek) or -derk (if it's a partitive plural).

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Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby linguoboy » 2018-08-10, 17:35

In other words, the form of the dative ending varies according to the animacy of the direct object?
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

Kota-Ebau

Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby Kota-Ebau » 2018-08-10, 19:01

Something like that. In my Conlang there are two genders, and they aren't like "Animated Gender" or... No, there's the Human Gender (for humans) and Inhuman Gender (for things, objects, animals, plants). In Nominative, the desinences for each one are -u and -a, and their Personal Pronouns are Hu and Da, respectively.
It doesn't depend on the animacy of the direct object, because genders' criteria for nouns doesn't depend on their animacy also, so it depends on it's gender.
For example:
"Äiʒu" means Grandpa.
"Mjoǯa" means Cat and
"Biköna" means Book.
There's also an already obsolete gender, with it's declension as -i, and it's only used in Personal Pronouns like Hi (I), Di (You), Ni (You (Formal)).

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Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby linguoboy » 2018-08-10, 19:37

Kota-Ebau wrote:Something like that. In my Conlang there are two genders, and they aren't like "Animated Gender" or... No, there's the Human Gender (for humans) and Inhuman Gender (for things, objects, animals, plants).

The distinction "human" vs "nonhuman" is considered a form of animacy (since humans are typical the apex of any animacy hierarchy). Nonhumans can often be treated grammatically as humans if they are personified or personalised in some fashion (e.g. animals in children's who walk upright and live in houses).
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby Linguaphile » 2018-08-10, 21:59

linguoboy wrote:
Kota-Ebau wrote:What I was trying to say is that we should explain the grammatical function of each case and then use it's name instead of explaining partially again and again and again. It's like if I explain the Abesive Case and since then I just use the name "Abesive" because all people will know what I'm talking about, instead of not naming it and each time I want to say "Abesive" I would have to say "The case that is used for this and this and is equal to the English preposition "Without". So I think is better the first option. Sorry for not explaining well before.

Do the case endings vary considerably according to the declension of the noun? Otherwise you could just name them by form, e.g. "the -kain suffix" or "the ending -òjr" in the same way that we say "without" or "the preposition instead of".


So, obviously it's the tradition in English (and many other languages) to name the cases using Latin-based terminology, but not every language does. You could give the cases descriptive names in the language itself and use those; Estonian for example has names for all of its cases which explain what they do in plain Estonian, and although those names exist alongside Latin-based synonyms, it's more common to use those Estonian ones. The Estonian ones are much easier to remember (provided that you know the meanings of the Estonian words they are composed of). So you might be able to do something along the same lines (obviously basing them on words from your own conlang, not Estonian!!), especially if the word you use incorporates the case ending itself.

Estonian examples (first the Estonian Latin-based names, then the native Estonian names):
Nominatiiv = Nimetav kääne: the "naming" case
Genitiiv = Omastav kääne: the "owning" case
Partitiiv = Osastav kääne: the "apportioning" case
Illatiiv = Sisseütlev kääne: the "into-saying" case
Inesiiv = Seeseütlev kääne: the "in-saying" case
Elatiiv = Seestütlev kääne: the "out-of-saying" case
Allatiiv = Alaleütlev kääne: the "onto-saying" case
Adessiiv = Alalütlev kääne: the "on-saying" case
Ablatiiv = Alaltütlev kääne: the "off-saying" case
Translatiiv = Saav kääne: the "becoming" case
Terminatiiv = Rajav kääne: the "establishing" case
Essiiv = Olev kääne: the "being" case
Abessiiv = Ilmaütlev kääne: the "without-saying" case
Komitatiiv = Kaasaütlev kääne: the "with-saying" case

Of course, to know what most of them mean you also need to know the meanings of the native words that are used, just the same as with the Latin names, but it avoids throwing Latin into the mix (since it's technically a third language here, and given that some of your cases are invented, you're basically making up words there too!). And you can incorporate the case endings, making it possible to see how to form the cases from the names themselves as well: for example in Estonian the sisseütlev case is formed by adding sse to the genitive form, the seestütlev case is formed by adding st to the genitive form, the alaltütlev case is formed by adding lt to the genitive form, and so on. This makes them much easier to remember than the Latin-based names.

The meanings are so transparent that there is a series of jokes (with many variations) about the so-called "10 new cases of Estonian" (or however many cases the particular version of the joke includes), simply listing the Estonian and Latin-based names of the so-called "new" cases, such as:
Dekoratiiv = Ilustav kääne: the "beautifying" case ("decorative" case)
Provokatiiv = Ässitav kääne: the "instigating" case ("provocative" case)
Korruptiiv = Äraostetav kääne: the "bribing" case ("corruptive" case)
Innovatiiv = Värskeltütlev kääne: the "freshly-saying" case ("innovative" case)
Alternatiiv = Teisitiütlev kääne: the "differently-saying" case ("alternative" case)
Nihilitiiv = Mittemidagiütlev kääne: the "nothing-saying" case ("nihilitive" case)
Konstruktiiv = Ülesehitav kääne: the "building-up" case ("constructive" case)
Naiiv = Usaldav kääne: the "believing" case ("naïve" case)
Huumoratiiv = Naerutav kääne: the "laughter-making" case ("humorative" case)
Sekretiiv = Salajaütlev kääne: the "secret-saying" case ("secretive" case)

I think the joke itself is better in Estonian, because the names sound more like authentic cases when the Estonian words are used, but you get the idea. (Maybe it will give you some new ideas for your conlang! But just to be clear the first list, of 14 cases , is real; the second list, of 10 cases, is an Estonian joke.) :-)
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

Kota-Ebau

Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby Kota-Ebau » 2018-08-14, 9:47

Thank you linguaphile, but I'm too confused now about my conlang. I mean, I've been having problems with all declensions since I tried to change simple plural for adverbial declensions and now I've got a complete conlang disaster! And the guilty is... The gender. My 2nd conlang creation attempt had 4 genders: male, female, neuter (for both) and objectal (for objects and animals...) Kind of animacy criteria. My latest one, Skevadish (or Skvädjarkäita if you prefer) has only two genders: 1 for humans and the other for objects and animals. But that's not the problem. The problem comes up when I decide that the gender would be suffixed to the word to obtain the Definite Article, like Mjoǯeck (cat) Mjoǯeckä (the cat). But later I think "Why do I need a Definite Article? I could need the Undefinite Article, but..." And then all the words on my conlang are suffixed with the gender and that's because I don't know how to construct a conlang other way!
I think I'm about to leave it. I'm now trying to create a conscript for Spanish and... Well, I'm obtaining nothing.
Thanks.

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Re: Unknown Grammatical Cases.

Postby linguoboy » 2018-08-14, 14:40

Kota-Ebau wrote:My 2nd conlang creation attempt had 4 genders: male, female, neuter (for both) and objectal (for objects and animals...)

A gender which unites male and female is most commonly called "common". (In the Scandinavian languages, where it stands in contrast to the neuter, it is somewhat humourously called "uter".)

Kota-Ebau wrote:But later I think "Why do I need a Definite Article? I could need the Indefinite Article, but..." And then all the words on my conlang are suffixed with the gender and that's because I don't know how to construct a conlang other way!

You could always make it so it's the suffixed article which actually indicates the gender (as in Scandinavian).

Remember that gender is fundamentally about agreement. Words don't have to have distinct declensions; what matters is what forms other words (adjectives, pronouns, determiners, verbs, etc.) take in order to indicate modification or reference.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons


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