Case: case
| Values: | Abl | Ben | Dat | DatErg | Erg | ErgTop | Gen | GenAbl | GenTop | Loc | LocTop | Top |
Case is an inflectional feature of nominals (NOUN, PRON, PROPN) and other parts of speech (ADJ, DET, NUM) when they are at the end of a noun phrase. The locative case can also be used on postpositions (ADP).
Case helps specify the role of the noun phrase in the sentence. Within the corpus, we identify seven distinct cases in Naga-Suansu: Erg, Top, Gen, Dat, Abl, Loc, and Ben.
Additionally, Naga-Suansu allows case stacking (Suffixaufnahme, Plank 1985).
Erg: ergative
The ergative case marks the subject of transitive verb. The ergative marker in Naga-Suansu is nan.
Examples
- Peternan thungzadi thewungae. “Peter bent the branch.”
Top: topic
The topic case marks what the sentence is about, by singling out a referent. The topic marker in Naga-Suansu is -di.
Examples
-
Peternan thungzadi thewungae. “Peter bent the branch.”
-
Tye szwadi bathanahn nungai rahn. “The wedding will be nice.”
Gen: genitive
The prototypical meaning of genitive is that the noun phrase somehow belongs to its governor. In Naga-Suansu, the genitive marker is -va.
Examples
- bava chabi “his key”
Dat: dative
The dative case is often used for the indirect object of ditransitive verbs such as ‘give’, ‘send’, and ‘bring’. In Naga-Suansu, the dative marker is -la.
Examples
- Tye leneonan ala papwehn laremie. “That girl brought me flowers.”
Abl: ablative
The ablative case indicates a movement away from something, removal, separation. In Naga-Suansu the ablative marker is -da, that also covers instrumental case.
Examples
-
Peter rhuida sahnte. “Peter went out of the house.”
-
Ba nan jug di rhuia** thepuie. “He filled the jug with water.”
Loc: locative
The locative case is often used expresses location in space or time. This case is sometimes used on postpositions (ADP). The locative marker in Naga-Suansu is -nahn and it is used to express movement towards a location.
Examples
-
Tye baneo boxphadi marketnahn lathate. “The men carried the boxes to the market.”
-
Thungbam rhui athoongenahn dhohnte. “The log sank in the water.”
Ben: benefactive
The benefactive case corresponds to the English preposition for. In Naga-Suansu, the benefactive case marker is -byahn.
Examples
- Ba pia velhwua dinnerbyahn* “She gathered mushrooms for dinner.”
Case stacking
Naga-Suansu allows case stacking (Suffixaufnahme, Plank 1985), where two case suffixes appear together on one noun phrase. Combinations found in the corpus include GenAbl, DatAgn, and AgnTop.
GenAbl: genitive ablative
The genitive and ablative markers can be combined.
Examples
- Hai letterdi Petervada. “This letter is from Peter.”
GenTop: genitive topic
The genitive and topic markers can be combined.
Examples
- _Avadi kappa rike. “Let me finnish”
DatErg: dative ergative
The dative and ergative markers can be combined.
Examples
- Alanan phabtama. “It’s not clear to me.”
ErgTop: ergative topic
The ergative and topic markers can be combined.
Examples
- Tye neonandi windowdi lhungda thekhiae. “The boy broke the window with a stone.”
LocTop: locative topic
The Locative and topic markers can be combined.
Examples
- Tye desknahndi szuraire yoan “Look nicely at that desk”
Case in other languages: [am] [apu] [arr] [bej] [bg] [cs] [el] [eme] [en] [es] [ess] [et] [fi] [ga] [gn] [grc] [gub] [hu] [hy] [ka] [kmr] [koi] [kpv] [ky] [mdf] [myu] [myv] [naq] [nmf] [pcm] [ps] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [tl] [tpn] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urb] [urj] [uz] [xcl] [yrk]