Should we revive cases in English instead of strict word order? How would we do it?
English cases
lol interesting topic... answer to the first question would be "no," but it would be interesting to try.
I can't imagine having more than a nominative, objective, and genitive... Seeing as how nominative probably wouldn't have an ending and the genitive case already has the -s ending, that leaves one case to work with.... Perhaps -m for masculine and neuter and -r for feminine or something along those lines.
I can't imagine having more than a nominative, objective, and genitive... Seeing as how nominative probably wouldn't have an ending and the genitive case already has the -s ending, that leaves one case to work with.... Perhaps -m for masculine and neuter and -r for feminine or something along those lines.
I don't know anything about cases in English, can someone give an example of how cases were in Old English? An understandable example though.
If you're going to go with cases, you might as well go all out, and eliminate prepositions altogether. I'd suggest forming the union of all cases from all languages, to create hundreds of English cases.
As for inflection, ideally we'd use interior vowel and consonent changes, and also tones and perhaps stress, along with prefixes and endings. Also, there should be no such thing as a regular noun or adjective. Instead, there'd be dozens of inflection patterns that any given word could follow. In addition, we could have about 10 genders, or classes along with perhaps half a dozen numbers, giving each noun 100 * 10 * 6 = 6000 inflected forms.
Of course, verbs would agree in gender and number with the subject, direct object, and indirect objects, so they'd have ((10 * 6) ** 3) * tense * mood * voice * aspect inflected forms. With 8 tenses, 3 aspects, 3 voices, and 4 moods, each verb would have something like 62208000 forms.
If we did all this, nobody would consider English to be "moronically simple", a "toy language", or just a pidgin version of French. We'd have morphological complexity that would be the envy of the world.
As for inflection, ideally we'd use interior vowel and consonent changes, and also tones and perhaps stress, along with prefixes and endings. Also, there should be no such thing as a regular noun or adjective. Instead, there'd be dozens of inflection patterns that any given word could follow. In addition, we could have about 10 genders, or classes along with perhaps half a dozen numbers, giving each noun 100 * 10 * 6 = 6000 inflected forms.
Of course, verbs would agree in gender and number with the subject, direct object, and indirect objects, so they'd have ((10 * 6) ** 3) * tense * mood * voice * aspect inflected forms. With 8 tenses, 3 aspects, 3 voices, and 4 moods, each verb would have something like 62208000 forms.
If we did all this, nobody would consider English to be "moronically simple", a "toy language", or just a pidgin version of French. We'd have morphological complexity that would be the envy of the world.
Strictly speaking, the 's is a clitic, not a case marker. If you say "The King of England's horse", the 's modifies "King of England", not just "England" as would be the case with a true genitive, as English used to have. When English had a true genitive, one had to say "The horse of the King of England", "The English King's horse", or even "The King's horse of England" (strange in Modern English, but once common).
Of course, true genitives do remain in the pronouns "his", "her", "its" (but often misspelled "it's"), "their", "my", and "your".
- Kef
Of course, true genitives do remain in the pronouns "his", "her", "its" (but often misspelled "it's"), "their", "my", and "your".
- Kef
<<Strictly speaking, the 's is a clitic, not a case marker. If you say "The King of England's horse", the 's modifies "King of England", not just "England" as would be the case with a true genitive, as English used to have. When English had a true genitive, one had to say "The horse of the King of England", "The English King's horse", or even "The King's horse of England" (strange in Modern English, but once common).
>>
Actually, and I know the " 's is a clitic" theory is being thrown around a lot these days, 's really is genitive case.
"The king of England's horse" though misinterpreted to mean "the horse of the King of England"--where 's is added to "King of England" as if it were a single unit--really means "England's horse's King" to be honest. Ambiguous to say the least, and a travesty in my hean behuide ("humble opinion")
To cases in English, I can see use for cases ONLY where prepositions are not required, like genitive and dative. Maybe instrumental.
Currently, we have 2 ways to mark genitive--one with preposition and one without: "of" and 's/s'
We have two ways to mark the dative--one with preposition(s), one without: "to"/"for" and position in the sentence [eg. "I gave Mr. Robins the book"--'Mr. Robins' is dative without preposition but due to placement]
Instrumental: we use prepositions for all--by, with, of, from, etc.
For the dative, there really is no need to change it, except when the accusative object is removed [eg. "I gave Mr Robins" = I gave to Mr Robins], but there are ways to get around this.
If we *had* to bring cases back, I would suggest these three, because they are the most oblique and really have no true markers. The prepositions we use for them are "borrowed" prepositions that truly belong to other functions [eg. "by" really means 'near', not 'through means of']
inflections for nouns would probably go something like this:
SINGULAR
General case (Nom, Acc, Abl, Loc, Voc, and Dative with preposition): -
Genitive: -s
Instrumental: -s (ebding taken from Genitive)
PLURAL
General: -s
Genitive: -om
Instrumental: -om
Genitive and Instrumental are the same, they fall together, so in essence there are just two cases: General and Oblique (Genitive/Instrumental)
"the man"
"thes mans" = of the man/by the man [instr]
"tha men"
"ther mennom" = of the men/by the men
that's it.
>>
Actually, and I know the " 's is a clitic" theory is being thrown around a lot these days, 's really is genitive case.
"The king of England's horse" though misinterpreted to mean "the horse of the King of England"--where 's is added to "King of England" as if it were a single unit--really means "England's horse's King" to be honest. Ambiguous to say the least, and a travesty in my hean behuide ("humble opinion")
To cases in English, I can see use for cases ONLY where prepositions are not required, like genitive and dative. Maybe instrumental.
Currently, we have 2 ways to mark genitive--one with preposition and one without: "of" and 's/s'
We have two ways to mark the dative--one with preposition(s), one without: "to"/"for" and position in the sentence [eg. "I gave Mr. Robins the book"--'Mr. Robins' is dative without preposition but due to placement]
Instrumental: we use prepositions for all--by, with, of, from, etc.
For the dative, there really is no need to change it, except when the accusative object is removed [eg. "I gave Mr Robins" = I gave to Mr Robins], but there are ways to get around this.
If we *had* to bring cases back, I would suggest these three, because they are the most oblique and really have no true markers. The prepositions we use for them are "borrowed" prepositions that truly belong to other functions [eg. "by" really means 'near', not 'through means of']
inflections for nouns would probably go something like this:
SINGULAR
General case (Nom, Acc, Abl, Loc, Voc, and Dative with preposition): -
Genitive: -s
Instrumental: -s (ebding taken from Genitive)
PLURAL
General: -s
Genitive: -om
Instrumental: -om
Genitive and Instrumental are the same, they fall together, so in essence there are just two cases: General and Oblique (Genitive/Instrumental)
"the man"
"thes mans" = of the man/by the man [instr]
"tha men"
"ther mennom" = of the men/by the men
that's it.
<< "The king of England's horse" though misinterpreted to mean "the horse of the King of England"--where 's is added to "King of England" as if it were a single unit--really means "England's horse's King" to be honest. >>
Uhh, there's no "misinterpretation" about it. The origin of this construction might indeed be some kind of misinterpretation, but that was hundreds and hundreds of years ago and now there is nothing at all unusual about having 's modify a phrase rather than a single noun.
"The King of England's horse", if we take this phrase to mean what it always means in practice, cannot be parsed as "England's horse's King," because there is no sense in which the horse belongs to England. At least, it doesn't belong to England any more than any other animal in England belongs to it.
- Kef
Uhh, there's no "misinterpretation" about it. The origin of this construction might indeed be some kind of misinterpretation, but that was hundreds and hundreds of years ago and now there is nothing at all unusual about having 's modify a phrase rather than a single noun.
"The King of England's horse", if we take this phrase to mean what it always means in practice, cannot be parsed as "England's horse's King," because there is no sense in which the horse belongs to England. At least, it doesn't belong to England any more than any other animal in England belongs to it.
- Kef
<<"The King of England's horse", if we take this phrase to mean what it always means in practice, cannot be parsed as "England's horse's King," because there is no sense in which the horse belongs to England. At least, it doesn't belong to England any more than any other animal in England belongs to it.
>>
Right, but the archetypal example is usually "The King of England's crown", in which the crown can belong either to England, or to the King.
When I hear "The King of England's crown", my mind first and foremost perceives it as (The King of (England's crown))
>>
Right, but the archetypal example is usually "The King of England's crown", in which the crown can belong either to England, or to the King.
When I hear "The King of England's crown", my mind first and foremost perceives it as (The King of (England's crown))
<<When I hear "The King of England's crown", my mind first and foremost perceives it as (The King of (England's crown)) >>
Isn't the ambiguity only in the writing? In speech, the following two would be pronounced differently:
"(The King of England)'s crown"
"The King of (England's crown)"
Isn't the ambiguity only in the writing? In speech, the following two would be pronounced differently:
"(The King of England)'s crown"
"The King of (England's crown)"
<<Isn't the ambiguity only in the writing? In speech, the following two would be pronounced differently:
>>
Correct!
Stress dictates which is which. Too bad can't do it in writing. Or can we?
>>
Correct!
Stress dictates which is which. Too bad can't do it in writing. Or can we?
cont.
perhaps:
King-of-England's crown or KingofEngland's crown
vs
King of England's crown
perhaps:
King-of-England's crown or KingofEngland's crown
vs
King of England's crown
<<I don't know anything about cases in English, can someone give an example of how cases were in Old English? An understandable example though. >>
Old English had four cases (Nominative, Accusative, Dative and Genitive), and reminents of a fifth (Instrumental).
Nominative = Subject of the sentence
Accusative = direct object
Dative = indirect object (but also includes locative [the "where-it's-at" case], ablative ["where-it's-from"])
Genitive = possessive
Instrumental = by/with/of/through what means [eg. This book was written *by me*. "By me" is instrumental, because it denotes how, or through what means the book was written]
here is a case example using the Old English word 'stān' ("stone")
Stān is heard = [The] stone is hard (Stān = Nominative/Subject case)
Ic sēo stān = I see [the] stone (stān = accusative/direct object case)
Ic hlēop stāne = I jumped [over the] stone (stāne = dative case)
Stānes blēo is brūn = [The] stone's color is brown (stānes = genitive case)
Ic wæs stāne geslægen = I was hit [by/with the] stone (stāne = instrumental case)
hope this helps :)
Old English had four cases (Nominative, Accusative, Dative and Genitive), and reminents of a fifth (Instrumental).
Nominative = Subject of the sentence
Accusative = direct object
Dative = indirect object (but also includes locative [the "where-it's-at" case], ablative ["where-it's-from"])
Genitive = possessive
Instrumental = by/with/of/through what means [eg. This book was written *by me*. "By me" is instrumental, because it denotes how, or through what means the book was written]
here is a case example using the Old English word 'stān' ("stone")
Stān is heard = [The] stone is hard (Stān = Nominative/Subject case)
Ic sēo stān = I see [the] stone (stān = accusative/direct object case)
Ic hlēop stāne = I jumped [over the] stone (stāne = dative case)
Stānes blēo is brūn = [The] stone's color is brown (stānes = genitive case)
Ic wæs stāne geslægen = I was hit [by/with the] stone (stāne = instrumental case)
hope this helps :)
Genitive is optional:
a friend of Joshua or a friend of Joshua's
driver license or driver's license
a friend of me and you or a friend of mine and thine
a friend of Joshua or a friend of Joshua's
driver license or driver's license
a friend of me and you or a friend of mine and thine