New CBB

A case is just a case. If some cases are marked by the presence of a morpheme while one case is marked by the absence of any morphemes, it's still a case—you just say "The ergative case is unmarked." I'm unaware of any case that is necessarily marked on a theoretical level. However, certain cases are certainly more likely to be unmarked than others in terms of what is attested in natural languages. Typically, in languages that have them, the ergative case is marked while the absolutive (or in tripartite languages, the intransitive) is unmarked.

This is why I said that your system is a peculiar tripartite system. But on a theoretical level, there's no reason I know of that the ergative case couldn't be the unmarked one.

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任何事物的发展都是物极必反，否极泰来。

I think that Nias has a Marked-Absolutive system.

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"Wait for the starvation of glaciers, chicken hamburger Noel Weber Arthur."

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One of the few ergative langs in Africa too has ergative as the unmarked case, and in fact also uses it as the citation form.

So the why is the subject of a transitive verb (in my system) called ergative? Why isn't it nominative?

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor

Because "nominative" is a case used for the agents of transitive verbs and the subjects of intransitive verbs. "Ergative" is a case used for the agents of transitive verbs but not the subjects of intransitive verbs. Your case is used for the agents of transitive verbs but not the subjects of intransitive verbs. Therefore, it is an ergative case.

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任何事物的发展都是物极必反，否极泰来。

Hi, Wake.

As someone whose conlang underwent exactly the same change some time ago, can I ask what sparked your decision to go tripartite? From what you've said so far, I'm guessing our reasons were similar.

Also, just to stick my oar in, the font of knowledge that is Wikipedia claims that 'intransitive' or 'absolutive' is the correct term for the case that inflects the subject of an intransitive verb. I use absolutive, because I think it sounds cooler.

As a side-note concerning the distinction between nominative and ergative, I found the images about halfway down this Wikipedia page very useful in coming to better understand the distinctions between absolutive, ergative, nominative, and accusative; maybe you'll find them useful.

I'd be interested to compare tripartite-related notes when you're done.

Dan

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Valar morghulis.

Zidhgebzhail Orthography

This thread is also helpful for understanding Morpho-Syntactic Alignment.

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

Well, I didn't know what a tripartite system was until 2 days ago, so I kind of made it without knowing it. I also understood only a little bit about ergativity, but I thought it would make my language cool and unique, so I accidently ended up making an absolutive case and turned the nominative into an ergative case in an unintended tripartite system. But I like it. :)

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor

Then my conclusions were wildly inaccurate.

I wonder if such a process would be likely to take place as a result of the natural evolution of a natlang. I'd not be surprised.

Dan

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Valar morghulis.

Zidhgebzhail Orthography

What were your reasons for switching to a tripartite system?

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor

Something about that thread confuses me.

It states that Dative languages mix the theme and patient together....yet English is Dative, but in the example sentences, the P and R are the same case, implying that English is Dechticaetiative. Is this merely a symptom of English not clearly marking cases?

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Dracusam Yg tol svrola zen gym mau
bitch-PL 1SG GEN swag DEST know NEG

English is fairly mixed.

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"Wait for the starvation of glaciers, chicken hamburger Noel Weber Arthur."

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English is a big mess. It would be easier to tell what is going on if we still marked things, but what fun is that?

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Hra'anh, Ponese

I think a better statment would be "All languages are big messes".

It's why we love them so much, after all.

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Dracusam Yg tol svrola zen gym mau
bitch-PL 1SG GEN swag DEST know NEG

Yes, indeed. If there was a "Like" button, I'd use it.

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Hra'anh, Ponese

I began with a standard nom/acc alignment, but with an explicitly-marked nominative (this was vaguely inspired by Latin, the only inflectional language I'd had much exposure to at that point). However, I didn't like the idea of proper nouns (especially personal names) always having an 'il' (the ergative ending) stuck on the end. Nor did I like the idea of the vocative case being the unmarked, dictionary form of words.

After a brief session following links through Wikipedia, I discovered the tripartite option. Overall, I'm very happy with it; it's exotic, it avoid an overtly-case-marked dictionary form, and it makes for shorter simple sentences.

Not the most interesting of tales, I know.

Dan

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Valar morghulis.

Zidhgebzhail Orthography

Then, you understood it.


There's some question whether English even has a third grammatical relation (a second object) at all.

But, assuming it does, English often doesn't mark the Theme and the Recipient (or Goal) differently from each other; for instance, if it moves the Recipient before the Theme.
But when the Theme comes before the Recipient, the Recipient (or Goal) is usually marked by the preposition "to".

So, when English does treat the Theme and the Recipient differently, it treats the Theme like the Patient of a monotransitive sentence, and treats the Recipient differently. In that respect it behaves like a Dative language.

In ditransitive English sentences in which the Recipient precedes the Theme, English behaves like a Neutral language (that is, Neutral in the ditransitive-to-monotransitive alignment).

English is Accusative/Nominative in monotransitive-to-intransitive alignment; and it is a mix of Dative and Neutral in ditransitive-to-monotransitive alignment.

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

So that I don't have to post yet another thread, I'm going to ask another question here. I don't really like adpositions all that much (well, I guess postpositions are okay to me) but I really love cases. So, what if instead of using the adpostitions I used cases? Would it be too much? And would it be cliche at all?

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor

Whether or not it's "too much" is up to you, and depends on things you haven't told us yet.

The Tsez language, it is said, has around 200 cases.
Most languages with more than some vague number of cases, have a tendency for the case-markings to be regular-ish "compoundoids"; that is, the "case-marking" may be two or more morphemes.

Look here at 2.1.1. Noun-inflection, at 2.1.1.2 through 2.1.1.7.3 (especially the table 2.1.1.5.1 through 2.1.1.5.26). There are some 52 to 104 case-like meanings there that could all be expressed by different cases, if you wanted to.

Some languages -- I believe Finnish and Hungarian and Hindi and Turkish may be among them -- have case-endings that seem to be made up out of two or three different morphemes.

You could have all three of prepositions and postpositions and cases; each combination could mean something different. If you had three prepositions (with lack of a preposition meaning something), three postpositions (with lack of a postposition meaning something), and four cases (one of which is zero-marked), you could make up to 64 combinations of them. I believe something like that is attested in some natlangs.

And some natlangs allow you to use two prepositions (or two postpositions) on one noun; as if you could say "on to the house" or "in to the house" (instead of "onto" and "into").

You could do something similar. Your case-"endings" could be composed of, say, three morphemes, each of which could have, say, six or seven or eight values, leading to 216 or 343 or 512 cases. Or, maybe, just two morphemes, one with eight and one with twelve values, leading to 96 cases. Or something like that.

You may be wondering whether the "syntactic" or "grammatical" cases can be expressed with adpositons or with cases; and the answer is, they can be expressed either way.

For the moment, let's assume I'm talking about Nominative, Accusative, Dative, and Genitive.
Tagalog's "ang" is kind of a combination definite article and nominative preposition. (German also has words that are at once articles and case-markers).
Spanish uses an accusative preposition for direct objects which are specific and animate (or maybe it's definite and animate, or maybe it's specific and human; I admit my memory is imperfect); but nonspecific inanimate direct objects don't need to be so marked.
English uses "to" for a dative preposition, and "of" for a genitive preposition; but English genitives can also use the "-'s" ending (the "Saxon genitive").

And classical European languages use many cases -- six in Sanskrit, eight in Latin, and so on.

Read Barry J. Blake's book "Case". It should guide you in setting up your case-system.

Remember that adpositions frequently come, diachronically, from words that were other parts-of-speech in an earlier form of the language or in an ancestral language; often, these were adverbs, but they could have been almost any part-of-speech.
Also remember that case-endings frequently come, diachronically, from words that were postpositions in an earlier form of the language or in an ancestral language.

So, I'd say, you should be able to say in your 'lang just about anything that another language would need adpositions to say, by using only cases and adverbs, or cases and other words that aren't adpositions, or just plain only cases.

See http://wals.info/feature/49A, and, if you want, other features and chapters having to do with cases or with adpositions.

And it wouldn't be something that's never happened in a natlang, nor something that's never been done in a conlang.

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I am not responsible for the accuracy of my sources; they're responsible for their own mistakes, if any, and also responsible for defending their own statements if you disagree with them.

Is it common though? I don't want to do it if it's cliche.

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor