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Tigol/Proto-Tigol: Difference between revisions
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→Fossilized case marking
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A descendant of a language with developed noun and adjective cases, Themsaran preserves vestigial case marking. The nominal and adjectival endings are themselves diachronically derived from case markers in the ancestral Proto-Talsmic language: | A descendant of a language with developed noun and adjective cases, Themsaran preserves vestigial case marking. The nominal and adjectival endings are themselves diachronically derived from case markers in the ancestral Proto-Talsmic language: | ||
=====Irregular definiteness===== | =====Irregular definiteness===== | ||
The definite unpossessed inflection is a generalization from the accusative case, which marked the definite direct object in addition to adverbial uses, certain oblique objects and time expressions. On the other hand, the indefinite base endings diachronically stem from the genitive case (from its partitive meaning and frequency in prepositional phrases); the predicative adjective endings as well as most forms where possessive suffixes are attached, come from the nominative. As such definiteness is required in objects of a small number of prepositions, and some time expressions (e.g. ''nǐeðām''/''minâm''/''crúamâm'' (< *''nējƶā-mī'' etc., instead of the expected ''*nǐeðètem'' < **''nējƶet-mī'') "today"/"tonight"/"tomorrow", ''nǐeðāŧ'' ("that day"), ''crúamâ/ra̋zā/ħíngā/minâ'' "in the morning/at daytime/at dusk/at night") and adverbial expressions. | The definite unpossessed inflection is a generalization from the accusative case, which marked the definite direct object in addition to adverbial uses, certain oblique objects and time expressions. On the other hand, the indefinite base endings diachronically stem from the genitive case (from its partitive meaning and frequency in prepositional phrases); the predicative adjective endings as well as most forms where possessive suffixes are attached, come from the nominative. As such definiteness is required in objects of a small number of prepositions, and some time expressions (e.g. ''nǐeðām''/''minâm''/''crúamâm'' (< *''nējƶā-mī'' etc., instead of the expected ''*nǐeðètem'' < **''nējƶet-mī'') "today"/"tonight"/"tomorrow", ''nǐeðāŧ'' ("that day"), ''crúamâ/ra̋zā/ħíngā/minâ'' "in the morning/at daytime/at dusk/at night") and adverbial expressions. Predicative nouns and adjectives are also required to be definite if they're predicates over an object noun. | ||
=====Fossilized oblique cases===== | =====Fossilized oblique cases===== | ||