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2.1.4 : Case Morphology

2.1.4.1 : Preliminaries

Perhaps the most complicated aspect of Degaspregos is its system of case differentiation. Very much like Finnish and other highly agglutinating languages, Degaspregos relies very heavily on case endings to indicate usages which in English would normally be indicated by prepositional phrases used in grammatical senses (not spacially). The majority of Degaspregos's cases are grammatical in nature; that is to say, the majority are not simply relexifications of English prepositions, merely stuck on the end instead of the beginning.

But perhaps of greater importance is the nature of combining case, number and gender within one matrix. For with Degaspregos, these endings are each shown separately because they are agglutinations, not inflections, which reduces to a minimum the number of actual endings one needs to know for communicating. Indeed, if Degaspregos had been inflectional like Latin, Greek, or Russian, it would like be difficult even for those who've grasped the fundamental grammatical relations, just because of the sheer level of memorization required.

But as it is, one need only know the few endings (which are far fewer in number than the derivational affixes one needs to memorize, usually with exceptions, in English) to be able to indicate easily and with great flexibility relational factors which often require very contorted structures in other languages.

So, why cases? Well, cases act as syntactic markers: they are signposts in the sentence as to what's going on. In many languages, because they have no case endings, they have to use word order. Because Degaspregos does have them, its word order is free to allow simple movement to increase emphasis of one thing over another. To illustrate this, observe the following distinctions being made. 

  
  Sentence                  Implied Emphasis   
  =============================================================
  "The dog hurt the boy."     
  Kwonos wirapaisom elkakwat.  Neutral word order: "The dog hurt the boy." 
  Kwonos elkakwat wirapaisom.  "The dog hurt the boy."; 
  Wirapaisom kwonos elkakwat.  "It was the dog that hurt the boy."
  Wirapaisom elkakwat kwonos.  "It was the dog that hurt the boy."   
  Elkakwat kwonos wirapaisom.  "The dog hurt the boy."
  Elkakwat wirapaisom kwonos.  "The dog hurt the boy."

It should be noted that the ends of the sentences carry the greatest emphatic weight (with the beginning words receiving more than the last), and inner comments carrying the least emphasis.

2.1.4.2 : Case formation rules and Noun-Case paradigm

Fully inflected noun = (gender affix) +
                       word root [including derivational affixes] +
                       lexical word class + 
                       case ending +
                       (numerical affix)
Ergo: 
               "men" = w-    (masculine prefix)      = "wirosi"
                       -ir-  (root)
                       -o-   (noun)
                       -s-   (nominative case ending)
                       -i    (plural suffix)

GN4.2: Noun Case Paradigm

Degaspregos has 26 cases: 


Case           Ending   Example    English Meaning

Existential Cases

Nominative     -s       wiros      man (subj.)
Predicative    -kso     wirokso    man (obj. of attribution)
Essive         -beo     wirobeo    the man being

Oblique Cases

Accusative     -m       wirom      man (direct obj. of transitive verb)
Dative         -bis     wirobis    to the man (indirect obj.)
Benefactive    -kis     wirokis    for the man (indirect obj.) 
Instrumental   -pte     wiropte    [with the man] (means of verb)
Agentive       -res     wirores    by the man
Abessive       -psis    wiropsis   from the man (opposite of dative)
Comitative     -ge      wiroge     with the man (accompaniment)
Relative       -rem     wirorem    (indicates obj. of preposition)
Vocative       -te      wirote     man! (addressing the man)

Multiadfixing Cases

Genitive       -so      wiroso     man's/of the man (possession or origin)
Partitive      -pro     wiropro    [some of] the man
Durative       -dro     wirodro    can indicate transformation, metamorphosis; 
                                     is often used with time expressions
Similitive     -ndra    wirondra   like the man, as the man
Associative    -sna     wirosna    of the man, [associated] with the man

Spacial Cases
 Interior: 
   Illative    -to      wiroto     to within the man
   Inessive    -ko      wiroko     inside the man
   Elative     -lo      wirolo     from within the man
 Exterior:
   Allative    -me      wirome     towards the man
   Adessive    -se      wirose     at/on the man
   Ablative    -de      wirode     away from the man
 State:
   Durative    -dro     wirodro    becomging a man
   Essive      -beo     wirobeo    being a man
   Partitive   -pro     wiropro    part of a man

2.1.4.3 : Case Usage Explanation

Okay, here they are in fuller detail. The cases can be broken down into several groups and subgroups.

2.1.4.3.1 : Existential Cases

  • Nominative (nomakasos) [-s] : acts as the subject of the sentence. This means that, e.g., in The man saw the dog, the root for man (wir-o-) would have to take the ending -s to indicate that function within the sentence. In particular, it should be noted that what sometimes functions as the nominative in many European languages (as in "He is nice") would be an entirely separate case, the predicative case (in English grammar classes in school, this is what's called the predicative nominative, because of the nominative's dual function in that language of both indicating predicate and agent.)

    Ex:

  • Meos menat, karatei meos esat. I think, therefore I am.

  • Predicative (preditakasos) [-kso] : This case indicates what in English would normally be called the predicative nominative. Such a sentence is normally used with "to be" in English, but may also include "to seem" and others. Essentially, the predicative case is used to show that one word is based upon another, just as the direct object of a sentence is based upon the subject's action. For example, in the sentence "The ball is red", the adjective "red" is being linked to the noun "ball", in such a way that we could not reverse it: redness is being linked to the ball, not the ball to redness in general (i.e., wherever the ball is, it will be red, but not everything red will be the ball); or, as Locke would say, redness inheres in the ball, not the ball in redness.

    This would work out in Degaspregos as "Globosatoi rebakso bat". (Note: the use of the attributive form of "be" here is not necessary, for the same reasons languages like Spanish do not require the use of pronouns in every sentence: it's redundant). Note also that phrases in English such as "He painted the house red" (which is separate from "He painted the red house"), uses the predicative case, with the underlying deep structure of "He painted the house [to be] red" ( = Seos domomatoi rebakso peiktakwit).

  • Essive (esakasos) [-beo] : indicates an essential condition. In many ways, it corresponds directly with the use of an ablative absolute in Latin, in that it describes a condition or phrase without reference to an outside syntactic construction. In English, this might be translated as a "with X" phrase, e.g., "With the man like this, he couldn't work" = Wirobeo tasei seos ne ergekstit.

    2.1.4.3.2 : Oblique Cases

  • Accusative (akusakasos) [-m] : indicates the direct object of the action. In the above example, the dog is the one who's being seen, and he is therefore marked as such by an -m ending.

  • Dative (gabakasos) [-bis] : indicates the indirect object, the person or thing indirectly affected by the action. For example, in the sentence, The man gave the child money, the child is the one who's receiving the action of the giving, but only indirectly because the child is not being given himself, just the money. So, the child would have an ending tacked on to indicate this: paisobis. Thus, the sentence would be "Wiros paisobis pekom gabit." In English, this is usually indicated by wordorder or by the preposition to (and all sentences like the above could be reordered to use the to-phrasing.

  • Benefactive (sudeigakasos) [-kis] : is also very similar to the indirect object, but is more limited in that only a person who benefits from the action would be counted. In English, this usually is shown by the preposition for, or, as with the dative, with wordorder. The case ending for it is -kis; the same sentence as above could be made in this way: "The man gave the money for the child" (i.e., the child may not have received, but someone else did). Thus, we get "Wiros paisokis pekom gabit."

  • Instrumental (ptakasos) [-pte] : indicates the means by which someone does something. For example, if in the above example, the man saw the dog with his eyes, what is in English a prepositional phrase (with his eyes) would become an instrumental, case-governed phrase in Degaspregos: seosoptei okoptei (or perhaps just okoptei). Highlights the nature of the object as a tool (see Agentive).

  • Agentive (resakasos) [-res] : similar in usage to the Instrumental, except that it is used only of sentient beings, and so shows the actor.

    Usage: an example of usage: Meos dorwom sweopte menakwit "I measured the tree with myself" would be in the instrumental, because the fact that one can act has no bearing on being used as a tool of measurement. On the other hand, in Yulios Kaisaros Brutores tanakwesit ("Julius Caesar was killed by Brutus"), the fact that the actor had the ability to choose his course of action is critical to understanding the statement.

  • Abessive (aprokasos) [-psis] : implies that the origin of the action was someone other than the person who actually commited the action, i.e., the person could be acting under the impetus or orders of another person. For example, in the sentence "The man gave the money from his father to his son", the man's father is the source of the money, though he himself is not giving it (the man is). Thus, this sentence would read "Wiros paisobis pekom pateropsis gabit."

  • Comitative (komakasos) [-ge] : indicates accompaniament. Though it is of course roughly equivalent to the English preposition with, it has a narrower meaning in that it applies only that thing Y is going along, or perhaps following, thing X. So for example, in "He went to school with her", the female in the situation is not just attending the same school as he is (which is the ambiguity involved in the English sentence) but more specifically that they were physically in the same location at the same time (however they got there). Thus, it would be translated "Weos gweoge skoleiode tratit [lit., "traveled"]".

  • Relative (relakasos) [-rem] : marks all objects of prepositions. The basic point of this case is that because prepositional phrases are marked specifically with a particular case, one can free up word order even more than otherwise. This means that within a standard sentence, the preposition and the word it modifies could theoretically be anywhere in the sentence, or at least the same extent that all other words can move about at random. Thus "Apro meos gweoge skoleiorem atit". Also, when not accompanied by a preposition, it may take on the meaning "with relation to"; e.g. wirorem seosi paukestom gnit = "Concerning the man they knew very little."

  • Vocative (wokakasos) [-te] : case of direct address. When someone is being directly spoken to, this case is used to draw attention to the fact. For example, if I were to call my mother to get her attention, I would say "Materote, gwamoi!" ["Mother, come!"].

    2.1.4.3.3 : Multiadfixing Cases

  • Genitive (genakasos) [-so] : denotes possession or origin. It operates similarly to the English genitive ending, -'s, though it does not carry with it the latter's temporal capacities (as in a day's work); for such functions the durative is used.

  • Partitive (partakasos) [-pro] : indicates that only a part of an object is being mentioned as important. So, "I ate [only] part of the apple" would come out as "Abelopro(m) edit" (but see below).

  • Durative (durakasos) [-dro] : indicates a transformation of state. Mostly this would imply something like the grammatical use in English of "into", as in "He turned into a werewolf" ("Misit weos wirawulpodro") Very often this can also include a span of time, as in a the example above: "a day's work" = "agodro ergos" (lit. "a work through a day"). (see usage note below)

  • Associative (sokakasos) [-sna] : carries out the functions of what is the descriptive genitive case in many European languages. For example, when the genitive is used to describe a given person, Degaspregos would use the associative case for this: a man of many interests, wiros maltasnai interesosnai.

    One of the more unusual aspects of Degaspregos is its ability to mix different cases or different verb endings. This is, to my knowledge, not a very common feature in the world's languages (though apparently Basque does have this feature, in addition to its other "oddities"). This system of cases mixing operates to allow a more general freedom of wordorder. For example, in the phrase "I saw the man's dog", the genitive ending may tack on the accusative ending to indicate specifically that man and dog are integrally related. "Meos wirosom kwonom widit" is though only an option; one does not have to add it, but if one doesn't, then the genitive noun must be placed adjacent to the noun it's describing.

    Likewise, with the partitive, "Meos wirosoprom kwonoprom widit" ["I saw a part of the man's dog", i.e., I saw his tail or something] could be a legitimate sentence if properly constructed. It cannot be too little stressed though that this entire process is more or less optional; one need not trouble oneself about it too much.

    Latin and many European languages have (or had) what is termed a "double accusative", where the object is explicitly named, and is also described as having undergone a transformation. For this, durative is used, with the distinction that the accusative ending (or whatever ending that makes sense) would be tacked onto the end of the durative: "They named their child Thomas" = "Seosi genuptom Tomodrom nomakwit". Further, it serves to disambiguate variously possible meanings: the sentence above could only mean that a couple had a small child, and they were naming it, while the other possible sentence one could say ("Seosi Tomom genuptodrom nomakwit") would by necessity mean that a couple was adopting a child, and simply making it official that he was in fact their child.

    2.1.4.3.4 : Spacial Case Relationships

    Though Degaspregos has prepositions as well, a few, well defined spacial concepts are embodied in local cases. These, like Finnish, can be plotted into a three by three square thus:
    Arrival Location Separation
    Interior Illative [-to] : "into" Inessive [-ko] : "inside" Elative [-lo] : "out of"
    Exterior Allative [-me] : "up to" Adessive [-se] : "at, on" Ablative [-de] : "away from"
    State Durative [-dro] : "becoming" Essive [-beo] : "being" Partitive [-pro] : "some of"

    2.1.5: Definiteness

    Having grammatical definiteness in a language means requiring in certain situations that a noun be marked for its being new or old information. In English and most European languages, this comes in the form of a "definite article" (e.g., English the), whose form may or may not vary according to a number of conditions like case (German), number (German, Spanish, French) or gender (German, Spanish, French). In most instances, the definite article derives from some older demonstrative pronoun (el (Span.) and il (Ital.) from Latin ille "that"; the (Eng.) and der (Ger.) from Protogermanic for "this/that"). This form has a variety of usages in the several languages, but in general indicates that the word(s) with which it is associated is old information, stuff that you have already heard about, either in the context itself, or should know from experience.

    Some languages went on to create an indefinite article, in English, a or an. This serves the opposite function: it tells the reader/listener that that object is new information.

    Observe from the following sentence: "I recently bought a ball, but when we were playing with it, the ball hit me." See that? When the ball is first mentioned, we use a to show it's something the speaker knows we haven't heard about. He then goes on to tell more about what happened, only then refering back to the ball with the, showing that it was the same ball, and not some other random ball.

    In Degaspregos, both functions are shown by the two suffixes -(a)toi and -(a)sema, which are attached the extreme end of the noun. Because they are, in effect, clitics, they do not undergo any of the changes that characterize European languages - no plural, gender or case shown here (because those things are already shown elsewhere in the noun form).

    You may have noted that the forms carry variations with -(a)-. This is because, as elsewhere, the phonotactics of the language prevent consonant clustering of adjacent morphemes.

    One last thing about this: these forms for definiteness/indefiniteness are not used as frequently as they are in English or other European languages. In those languages, every sentence (well, almost) requires the presence of one of the two forms. Degaspregos only requires this for the first mentioning of the topic in a discussion, or where felt to be necessary or to be emphatic about an issue. They are not quite optional, but their use is somewhat more restricted in this sense.

    For the brave of heart, here's a full paradigm for those interested.

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