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Now that we've been introduced to morphology, let's look at one
popular kind of morphology on nouns.
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She saw her.
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She saw her.
• she: 'nominative'
• her: 'accusative'
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She saw her.
• she: 'nominative'
• her: 'accusative'
maybe the first thing to say is that not all languages have this...
Ta kan-le ta. 'She saw her' (Mandarin)
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She saw her.
• she: 'nominative'
• her: 'accusative'
Yukarrbarda kurri bidngen-i. [Lardil]
Muzcina videl zenscin-u. [Russian]
Adam kad1n-1 gordii. [Turkish]
'The man saw the woman'
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Some cases have meanings that are fairly easy to explain...
nunam Stan 'I see the town' (Wampanoag)
nutay Stan-at 'I live in the town'
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Some cases have meanings that are fairly easy to explain...
talo-ssa 'in the house' [Finnish]
talo-lta 'from the house'
talo-lle 'to the house'
talo-sta 'out of the house'
talo-on 'into the house'
talo-lla 'at the house'
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Some cases have meanings that are fairly easy to explain...
talo-ssa 'in the house' [Finnish] coa-sse 'in the house' [Quenya]
talo-lta 'from the house' coa-llo 'from the house'
talo-lle 'to the house' coa-nna 'to the house'
talo-sta 'out of the house'
talo-on 'into the house'
talo-lla 'at the house'
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. . . but others are not as simple.
She likes llamas.
The llama likes her.
I want her to like llamas.
In order for her to like llamas,
she will have to overcome her fear of being spat on.
structural case: seems to say something about where the noun is
in the sentence?
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Patterns of structural case
She left.
She saw her.
Bidngen yuurr-waa. 'The woman left' (Lardil)
Bidngen kurri yalaan bidngen-i. 'The woman saw the other woman'
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Patterns of structural case
nominative-ace usative
She left.
She saw her.
ergative-absolutive
Na'e kata 'a Sione. 'John laughed' (Tongan)
Na'e langa 'e Sione 'a e fale. 'John built a house'
Ngarrka wangkaja. 'The man spoke' (Warlpiri)
Ngarrka-ngku wawirri luwamu. 'The man shot the kangaroo'
Miali aniqqaujuq. 'Miali left.' (Jnuktitut)
Taiviti-up suraktanga igaalaq. 'Taiviti broke the window'
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Patterns of structural case
nominative-ace usative
She left.
She saw her.
ergative-absolutive
Na'e kata 'a Sione. 'John laughed' (Tongan)
Na'e langa 'e Sione 'a e fale. 'John built a house'
three-way
Agherre nterreke. 'The kangaroo ran'
Artwe-le agherre-nhe weke. 'The man shot the kangaroo'
(Antekerrepenhe)
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Patterns of structural case
. . .
I Vintransitive nomtnattVe-QCCUSQ/lVe
I
I
: S : Vtransitive 0
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Patterns of structural case
. . .
I Vintransitive nomtnattVe-QCCUSQ/lVe
I
I
: S : Vtransitive 0
---- -
( S ', Vintransitive ergative-absolutive
"'- �- ----- - - ,
\'_
�
S o, - ,�
Ytransitive' ',
"
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Patterns of structural case
. . .
I Vintransitive nomtnattVe-QCCUSQ/lVe
I
I
: S : Vtransitive 0
---- -
( S ', Vintransitive ergative-absolutive
"'- �- ----- - - ,
\'_
�
S o, - ,�
Ytransitive' ',
"
S Vintransitive three-way
S Vtransitive 0
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Patterns of structural case
• • •
: Vintransitive nom1nat1ve-accusat,ve
I
I
1
s• . . .
I Vtransitive 0
(
----
S ', Vintransitive ergative-absolutive
\
"'- -
'_
�- - - -
---� - -
o,,,� "
S Ytransitive' ',
S Vintransitive three-way
S Vtransitive 0
S .,
Vintransitive �S- ., yt���itiv; ..., 'Q �� not found!
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One way to think about this:
Case systems are always set up so that
transitive S and transitive 0
are different from each other.
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One way to think about this:
Case systems are always set up so that
transitive S and transitive 0
are different from each other.
Intransitive S can then pattern with:
• transitive S (nominative-accusative)
• transitive O (ergative-absolutive)
• neither (three-way)
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One reason to think about things this way: quirky case
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Quirky case
In a lot of languages, there are particular verbs that are associated
with unusual cases...
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Quirky case
In a lot of languages, there are particular verbs that are associated
with unusual cases...
l>eir hafa etio fiskinn. (Icelandic)
'They have eaten the fish (ACCUSATIVE)'
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Quirky case
In a lot of languages, there are particular verbs that are associated
with unusual cases...
l>eir hafa etio fiskinn. (Icelandic)
'They have eaten the fish (ACCUSATIVE)'
l>eir hafa hent fiskinum.
'They have discarded the fish (DATIVE)'
➔ 'discard' assigns quirky dative case to the object.
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Quirky case
In a lot of languages, there are particular verbs that are associated
with unusual cases...
Hun kyssti Mario.
'She (NOMINATIVE) kissed Mary (ACCUSATIVE)'
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Quirky case
In a lot of languages, there are particular verbs that are associated
with unusual cases...
Hun kyssti Mario.
'She (NOMINATIVE) kissed Mary (ACCUSATIVE)'
Benni likuou hestarnir.
'She (DATIVE) liked the horses (NOMINATIVE)'
➔ 'like' assigns quirky dative case to the subject...
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Quirky case
In a lot of languages, there are particular verbs that are associated
with unusual cases...
Hun kyssti Mario.
'She (NOMINATIVE) kissed Mary (ACCUSATIVE)'
Benni likuou hestarnir.
'She (DATIVE) liked the horses (NOMINATIVE)'
➔ 'like' assigns quirky dative case to the subject...
...and it turns out that whenever the subject is dative,
the object in Icelandic is nominative.
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Quirky case
➔ 'like' assigns quirky dative case to the subject...
...and it turns out that whenever the subject is dative,
the object in Icelandic is nominative.
Why isn't the object accusative, as usual?
Well, it doesn't need to be: if the subject is going to be dative,
then the subject and the object will be in different forms, even if
we don't make the object accusative. So the object can be
nominative.
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Case splits
It's very common for languages to alternate between nominative
accusative and ergative-absolutive systems. One common kind of
split is conditioned by tense/aspect:
Raam rotii khaataa thaa. [Hindi]
'Raam ate bread (habitually)'
Raam-ne rotii khaayii thii
'Raam has eaten bread'
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Case splits
It's very common for languages to alternate between nominative
accusative and ergative-absolutive systems. One common kind of
split is conditioned by tense/aspect:
Raam rotii khaataa thaa. [Hindi]
'Raam ate bread (habitually)'
Raam-ne rotii khaayii thii
'Raam has eaten bread' ➔ perfect tenses are ergative
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Case splits
Another common split is pronouns vs. non-pronouns:
Ngaja gagama 'I will go' (Warrgamay)
Ngaja nginba nyuunjalma 'I will kiss you'
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Case splits
Another common split is pronouns vs. non-pronouns:
Ngaja gagama 'I will go' (Warrgamay)
Ngaja nginba nyuunjalma 'I will kiss you'
Gajiya gagama 'The girl will go'
Gajiya-nggu muyma nyuunjalma 'The girl will kiss the boy'
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Differential object marking
Bir k1z-1 gordiim (Turkish)
'I saw a (specific) girl'
Bir k1z gordiim
'I saw some girl or other'
➔ accusative case, but only on a subset of objects
('specific' ones)
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Syncretism
'girl' (Latin)
NOMINATIVE puella
ACCUSATIVE puellam
GENITIVE puellae
DATIVE puellae
ABLATIVE puella
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Syncretism
'girl' 'boy' (Latin)
NOMINATIVE puella puer
ACCUSATIVE puellam puerum
GENITIVE puellae puer1
DATIVE puellae puero
ABLATIVE puella puero
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Syncretism
'girl' 'boy' 'war' (Latin)
NOMINATIVE puella puer helium
ACCUSATIVE puellam puerum helium
GENITIVE puellae puer1 helli
DATIVE puellae puero hello
ABLATIVE puella puero hello
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Syncretism
'girl' 'boy' 'war' (Latin)
NOMINATIVE puella puer helium
ACCUSATIVE puellam puerum helium
GENITIVE puellae puer1 helli
DATIVE puellae puero hello
ABLATIVE puella puero hello
Case Contiguity (Caha 2009):
to be syncretic, two cases must be adjacent to each other on the
following list:
nominative - accusative - genitive - dative - ablative
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24.917 ConLangs: How to Construct a Language Fall 2018
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