User:Karina Y T Wong/sandbox

There is still no full consensus on what case is and how it differs from other concepts, such as the adpositions. (Kittilä, 1)

Case has been defined in a variety of ways

Case is an examination of the variety of semantic relationships which can hold between nouns and other portions of sentences (Fillmore, 1968)

"Case is a system of marking dependent nouns for the type of relationship they bear to their heads". The term traditionally refers to inflectional marking. (Blake, 2001)

Case is an inflectional dimension of nouns that serves to code the noun phrase's semantic role. (Haspelmath 2002)

These definitions do share similar points, such that case is defined as a relation that a noun bears to the verb. The relation must be somehow definable in semantic terms.

Case is closely related to adposition. Both code semantic roles. The formal difference between the two is that case markers are affixes and attach to their hosts (which may cause morphophonological changes), while adpositions are independent constituents and do not trigger any changes in the nouns they modify. As a generalization, adpositions are more specific semantically, whereas cases are more abstract in nature. (3)

Case can be further divided into two categories: grammatical cases and semantic cases. Grammatical cases comprise cases such as nominative, accusative, absolutive, and ergative. These typically code core grammatical relations which are semantically dependant on the verb, such as subject and object. Semantic (or adverbial) cases comprise of instrumental, comitative, and locative cases. These are semantically richer and less dependant on the verb. There exists cases, such as datives, that are borderline between these two categories, having both semantic and grammatical case features. (4)

Case Hierarchy nominative/absolutive argument <m accusitive/ergative argument <m dative argument <m other oblique arguments (Jensen, 2)

The case hierarchy holds for many languages, but it is not universally valid. Some languages may lack one of the above catgories, or may collapse categories into one hierarchy position. (3, 18)

The order in which the cases are aligned in various descriptive grammars originated in Ancient Greek and Latin grammars: nominative, gentitive, dative, and accusitive. The order of which, other than nominative coming first, is entirely arbitrary. (16)

Jensen, J. T., & Indiana University Linguistics Club. (1983). Case and thematic role in latin: Evidence from passive constructions. Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University Linguistics Club.

Kittilä, S., Västi, K., & Ylikoski, J. (2011). Case, animacy and semantic roles. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co.