Questions tagged [case]

For questions on inflectional forms that indicate the grammatical functions of nouns, pronouns and their modifiers (such as adjectives).

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11 votes
1 answer
615 views

What are common origins of accusative case markers?

What are the primary way(s) accusative case markers can develop? The primary way of development of oblique case markers seems relatively straightforward, with attachment of adpositions (which can ...
Gufferdk's user avatar
  • 2,367
9 votes
3 answers
99 views

State-based analogue to distributive case

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 ...
Мікалас Кaрыбутоў's user avatar
8 votes
3 answers
268 views

Do I need a Dative Case?

My conlang already has Benefactive and Lative cases, does it really need a Dative case? I'm racking my brain to find situations that couldn't be covered by those two and would require a separate ...
Aezyc's user avatar
  • 487
7 votes
1 answer
269 views

Grammatical cases occurring only in conlangs

What are examples of grammatical cases that are not attested in natural languages, but occur in some conlang? To qualify here, the conlang should have at least some bit of flesh (e.g., a few ...
Sir Cornflakes's user avatar
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4 votes
6 answers
194 views

Help, drowning in Dative---What should inform my conlang's exact usage of it? Do languages ever have a "miscellaneous" case?

I am a native English speaker that wanted to make a conlang.... recipe for disaster, I know. My language has Nominative, Accusative, Dative and Genitive. I was having difficulty internalizing how to ...
CJ Lynx's user avatar
  • 49
4 votes
2 answers
95 views

How to create irregular pronoun paradigms

My language has several cases. I have their affixes worked out for the nouns, as well as the proto-affixes, but what I want to know is, how can I get the pronouns to have different-looking cases? I ...
nearsighted's user avatar
3 votes
5 answers
471 views

Is it possible to make a declension system that DOESN'T limit what nouns can end in?

This has always been a conundrum for me. I like how grammatical case frees up word order, but hate how it puts a limit on what nouns can end in. Years ago someone told me of a natlang that uses 6 ...
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