inventory of cases

While I was working upon the adpositional particles of Denden,
which are used as a kind of case markers, I was wondering which
cases were being used, and I made the following small list, based
on a few grammars and Blake's _Case_ - now I wonder which ones I've
forgotten? Does anyone have a few others for me? Perhaps the ordering
could use some work too.

Cases

  (A lot of cases have virtually the same description: this list is
  culled from the literature, and so I know that all these descriptions
  are actually in current (this decade) use.)

Verbal arguments:

nominative:   subject of the intransitive and agent of transitive sentence
accusative:   direct object the transitive sentence
absolutive:   subject of the intransitive and direct object of the transitive
              sentence
ergative:     agent of the transitive sentence. Often formally the
              same as the instrumental
dative:       indirect object
instrumental: (agent,) instrument, means, cause or implement

Nominal relationships

genitive:     posession or belonging together. nominal marked with genitive
              may occur adnominally as the modifier of another noun,
              membership of an element in a set, part-whole relationship.
possessive:   modify overt head, used independently without explicit
              reference to the modified object, belonging together as an
              attribute, relationship between two people, acquintance with,
              'to have'
comparative:  used in comparisons, 'than' ;-)

Locative cases

locative:     place, destination at a certain point, point in time:
possessive locative: place, destination belonging to a certain area
essive:       at (cf. locative)
inessive:     in(side)
adessive:     at
superessive:  above
subessive:    below
ablative:     going from, 'from', 'via' (spatial & figurative), 'by
              means of which', 'from the exterior of'
allative:     going towards, 'up to', 'up as far as', 'until', towards
              the exterior of
illative:     going into
similirative: similarity
sociative:    coordinates arguments ('and'), comitative
comitative:   belonging together, 'with', accompaniment, coordinates
              nominal arguments: 'and' (usual animate referents)
elative:      starting point of a movement, point in time after which
              something takes place, startpoint of a comparison, 'out of',
              'from the interior of'
mediative:    means or route by which an event takes place
ornative:     endowed with, equipped with, outfitted with
intrative:    'between, inbetween'
perlative:    path (same as mediative?), through, along
superlative:  to the top of
translative:  through
partitive:    from, source

Speech act

vocative:     addressing someone

Others:

abessive:     absent
privative:    lacking, not having
concomitative:having
proprietive:  having, possessing
aversive:     turning from
evitative:    avoiding
causal:       causing
purposive:    with the purpose to


Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt