Page 1 of 1

Help me find a name for these cases

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 20:14
by Alessio
Maybe it's not a beginner's question, but I thought this was the best place to ask questions in the first place.
I'm working on a conlang relying extensively on locative cases. Here is a table:

Code: Select all

		  OPEN		 CLOSED	  ON			UNDER
STATE	Locative	Inessive	Adessive	Subessive
TO		Lative	  Illative	Allative	Sublative
FROM	 Ablative	Elative	 Delative	[1]
VIA	  Vialis	  Perlative  [2]  		[3]
I was able to give a name to 13 of 16 cases, using terminology from different languages; I kind of invented this distinction between perlative and vialis, since I couldn't find evidence of any language contrasting them, but I have not succeeded at finding a name for [1] (motion from under), [2] (motion across the surface) and [3] (motion through the space below).
I thought about ispodlative for [1] (from Russian из-под, a preposition meaning "from under") and occultative for [3] (since anything moving under something else is probably concealed by it). I'm not convinced about these names though, and I still have no idea how to call [2].
Any help?
Please stick to Latin and Greek roots if possible (avoid things like "acrosslative"). I wouldn't know how to translate other into Italian, which is really important to me. "Ispodlative" itself is really ugly.

Re: Help me find a name for these cases

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 20:30
by gach
Why not stack prefixes: [1] subablative, [2] superperlative, [3] subperlative, or go with that same idea and systematise the names of the other cases as well? Might not be the most elegant names around, but you can hardly get around that anyway with a rich bunch of cases like that.

Re: Help me find a name for these cases

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 23:31
by esoanem
I'd follow gach's idea although to me switching the order of the elements seems more natural e.g. absublative, persuperlative, persublative on the basis that (in absublative for instance), the motion is from underneath so it is ab-(sub-) rather than motion being under from which doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

Re: Help me find a name for these cases

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 23:55
by gach
Either work. The "postural first" naming convention is what you see used with the Daghestanian composite local cases, such as in Tsez. But these are just names, so choose what feel the best.
esoanem wrote:persuperlative
This, however, has me in stitches as a case name you could maybe use in some complicated political satire. That probably won't make sense to most of you, but thanks for that anyway. [xD]

Re: Help me find a name for these cases

Posted: 06 Oct 2017 09:12
by Alessio
esoanem wrote:I'd follow gach's idea although to me switching the order of the elements seems more natural e.g. absublative, persuperlative, persublative on the basis that (in absublative for instance), the motion is from underneath so it is ab-(sub-) rather than motion being under from which doesn't seem to make much sense to me.
I agree. This sticks more to the Latin rules.
I will wait for a few more options and if nothing better comes out, this is what I'll use.

Re: Help me find a name for these cases

Posted: 06 Oct 2017 15:03
by Iyionaku
If you mean movement or position upon something (i.e. on the surface), "sublative" will be misleading as this is normally a movement to the surface, i.e. row 2, column 3 instead of 4.
If you don't want to use gach's idea (which I'd prefer; many case-rich and logical languages like Laz, for example, use it this way), I'd propose something like this:

Location: Open / Closed / On top / Below

Static: Adessive / Inessive / Superessive / Subessive
Towards: Allative / Illative / Superlative / Sublative
From: Adelative / Indelative / Superdelative / Subdelative
Via: Lative / Perlative / Prolative / X

The last one is not attested, so I'm very uncertain about it. Maybe "Subprolative".