Re: THEORY: Case stacking; was: Re: THEORY: genitive vs. construct case/izafe

Hello, everyone, and thanks for writing.

TERMINOLOGY QUESTION:  Is "Suffixaufnahme" the same as "case-
stacking"?

-----

Julia, has it really been /that/ long since you spoke Sumerian?
Seems like it was just yesterday I was ordering lunch at a corner
diner in Ur.

(Okay, that was a joke.  I don't really have to say "1952 CE" instead
of just "1952" when people ask me what year I was born.)

----

Tom H.C. in MI


From: "Julia \"Schnecki\" Simon" <helicula@...>
Date: Tue Jul 26, 2005  7:49 am
Subject: Case stacking; was: Re: THEORY: genitive vs. construct
case/izafe  helicula@...
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Hello!

On 7/23/05, tomhchappell <tomhchappell@...> wrote:
> Hello, Joerg, Henrik, Julia, and others.
> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Jörg Rhiemeier
<joerg_rhiemeier@W...>
> wrote:
> > Hallo!
> >
> > Henrik Theiling wrote:
> >
> > > [snip]
> > > Assume the whole phrase is in case X, then you get:
> > >
> > > Modifier-GEN Modified-X == Modifier-X Modified-CONSTR
> > >
> > > [snip]
> >
> > Exactly. But more precisely, it is the construct _state_, because
> > the modified noun can be, in languages with case systems such as
> > Classical Arabic, of any case.
>
> It seems to me that "This is a Job for Case-Stacking!"
> Are "genitive phrases" the most typical place to find case-stacking
> in languages that allow case-stacking?
Quite possibly. The only natlang I know that has anything that could
be called "case stacking" is Sumerian, and all the case-stacking
examples I have (um, all the both of them; see below) involve at least
one genitive.

(Also, it seems logical; genitives [possessives, whatever they're
called in a particular language] can be combined with each other --
and with non-genitive NPs -- much more easily than other cases. ;)

Some Sumerian examples:

é lugal-ak "the king's house" ("house king-of"); SeS lugal-ak "the
king's brother ("brother king-of")

-> é lugal-ak-a "in the king's house" ("house king-of-in")
-> é SeS lugal-ak-ak-a "in the king's brother's house" ("house brother
king-of-of-in")

... and presumably, even longer constructions of this type are
possible.

(Some vocabulary: _é_ "house", _lugal_ "king", _SeS_ "brother"; _-ak_
is the genitive, _-a_ the locative suffix. <S> is supposed to be
s-with-hacek, which I can't type here.)

(And I hope I haven't made any really silly mistakes in my Sumerian.
It's been a long time... *sigh* So many languages, so little time.)

Regards,
Julia

--
Julia Simon (Schnecki) -- Sprachen-Freak vom Dienst
_@" schnecki AT iki DOT fi / helicula AT gmail DOT com "@_
si hortum in bybliotheca habes, deerit nihil
(M. Tullius Cicero)


--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Henrik Theiling <theiling@A...> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Markus Miekk-oja <m13kk0@H...> writes:
> > I'd suspect partitives, if used in constructions like 'a wall of
> > stone' (wall-WHATEVER stone-PART-WHATEVER), and ablatives (the
man-nom
> > Greenwich-from-nom) and generally any cases that are allowed to be
> > used as attributes of nouns are next in line to receive it, after
> > genitives. Languages like Kayardild case stack in rather insane
ways,
> > and can mark every word in a subclause with the same case ("I
heard
> > that he is out of town" -> I heard that-ACC he-ACC is-ACC out-ACC
> > of-ACC town-ACC + the other internal case endings there'd be
there)...
>
> Really!  And that's a natlang?
>
> I once planned this for a conlang of mine that never made it (S4 or
> S6, I think) in order to allow *really* free word order, i.e., any
> order for words in any sentence with any nesting depths would be ok,
> but I abandoned the thought because it seemed too wild to me...
>
> **Henrik

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