I am developing conlang that has grammatical cases system for nominals that for each spatial case there is state-based case.
In Finnic languages grammatical cases that denote states occur, examples in Finnish:
- Essive (ESS) with the ending -na/-nä denotes being in state, corresponds to the combination 'as X' in English. lapsi - 'child', lapsena - 'as child / being a child'
- dialectal Exessive (EXESS) with the ending -nta/-ntä denotes a departure from state, corresponding to English 'from being X...'. lapsi - 'child', lapsenta - 'from being child'
- Translative (TRANSL) with the ending -ksi denotes a transition into state, corresponds to English 'to (becoming) X'. aikuinen - 'adult', aikuiseksi - 'to adult'. lapsenta aikuiseksi = '[maturing] from child to adult'.
There is clear spatial analogy:
- Locative ↔ Essive
- Ablative ↔ Exessive
- Allative ↔ Translative
You can construct state-based analogues to other spatial cases. For example, for the Prolative case ('through X') we can make Essive-Prolative, which would mean 'passing through a state of being X / through way of being X"
There is a Hungarian grammatical case called Distributive (DISTR) with the ending -nként, which is equivalent to 'per X'. For example, hét - 'week', hetenként - 'weekly, once per week'. It has a clear spatial-temporal nature.
I am trying to come up with a state based analogue for this case. Let's call it 'Essive-distributive', but I am stuck with the expansion of the analogy. What exactly can 'per being in state' mean? Can anyone suggest a meaning and usage for such a case?