From: jardar@swix.ifi.unit.no (Jardar Eggesboe Abrahamsen)
Subject: Re: U` => Declension cases in Esperanto
Organization: University of Trondheim, Norway
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 11:21:17 GMT

In article <BxI51o.916@cck.coventry.ac.uk> esz001@cck.coventry.ac.uk (Will Overington) writes:
>
>However, one could start with Nominative and Accusative and then,
>when sentences of the complexity of having an Indirect Object arise,
>state that it is Dative case and say that the ending is the same as
>for the nominative but that one uses a preposition in order to make
>it clear that it is not the nominative noun or pronoun.
(...)
>But it isn't Latin case structure as such. We have Indirect Object
>(that is, Dative) and Genitive in English.
>
>One can say that Esperanto does not have the Anglo-Saxon Genitive form.
>For example,
>In English
>The man's book.  (deriving from "The man his book" I think)
>or
>The book of the man.
>
>In Esperanto
>La libro de la viro.
>
>>I very much disagree.  Here we have a beautifully easy language with two
>>completely regular cases, ....
>
>Are you claiming that Esperanto has two and only two cases?
>Are these then Nominative and Accusative?
>Does that mean that Esperanto thus has no Genitive case?  :-)
>Does that mean that Esperanto thus has no Dative case?    :-)    :-)
>
>Hmm!
>
>Will

------------------------------------
This was an extract from one of the resent articles on this subject:

First, case is a morpho-syntactic category: The word takes a special form
according to its function in the sentence, or its semantic value in this
function. This means that case is expressed through changes in the word
itself, e.g. affixes. As a result of this, one is reluctant to talk about
case in languages like Japanese, where one uses _particles_ in stead of
case endings, even though the particles have "case function".

     Japanese: Taroo ga inu o    butta.
     English:  Taroo    dog      hit.   (that is: Taroo hit the dog.)
     Esperanto:Taroo    hundon   batis.

The Japanese particle _ga_ denotes a subject "nominative" function, and
_o_ an object "accusative" function. But function is not form.

According to this there is no dative case in the sentence

     La viro donas al la virino kison.
     (= The man gives the woman a kiss.)

In English the functions of direct and indirect object are visible through
word order, in Japanese through particles, and in many other languages
through case endings.

But what would happen if we redefined the term "case", so that it would
apply to any of the ways of expressing functions? Then we could talk about
dative in Esperanto, denoted by the preposition "al", accusative in
Japanese, denoted by the particle "o", and in English we would have a
dative denoted by its being just before the accusative (the accusative is
visible in some personal pronouns: He gives _her_ a kiss).

However: How many cases would we then find in English and Esperanto? The
cases of Latin? Or the cases of Latvian? Or Japanese? In the sentence:

     The student lives in Riga.
     La studanto loghas en Riga.

Should we talk about locative case? In Latvian there are seven cases,
including locative: (i', u', a' are long vowels)

     Ri'ga ir tur. (Riga is there.)
     Stu'dents dzi'vo Ri'ga'. (the student lives in Riga.)

And how many cases are there in Finnish? I think it is about 15. In
Hungarian there are 26 (I think, maybe it was 28). There are cases
denoting not only locative "on or in the place", there are also cases for
"leaving the object from behind it" and "leaving the object from under it".

Of course, the solution is that every language is structurally independent
from other languages. One cannot take one language and say that that
grammar is more universal than other languages. This is the fundamental
principle of structuralism (F. de Saussure): Meaning arises through
differences in one the the same language.

Thus also "accusative" in Esperanto is not the same as "accusative" in
German or Latvian, as this case is being used in different ways. Ex. in
German a noun coming after the preposition _ohne_ (without) will have the
accusative, but in Esperanto a noun after _tra_ will have the nominative.
Knowing that corresponding cases in various languages are not identical,
it would be wrong to talk about Latin or Latvian cases like locative in
languages which have no locative, e.g. Esperanto and Norwegian.

Conclusion (at last!): In Esperanto there are two cases, nominative and
accusative. When a word (or a syntagm of words) has the function of
"indirect object" (or better: benefactive), this is expressed through a
prepositional phrase beginning with "al". The relation between the owner
and the owned is expressed through the preposition "de". When talking
about grammatical features one should stay within the boundaries of the
language in question.

Finally I would like to apologize for my bad English. I didn't use
Esperanto because the discussion is in English. Pardonu min, sankta Ludoviko.


-- 
Jardar Eggesboe Abrahamsen            "Ili rigardis min kiel sian
jardar@swix.ifi.unit.no                moralan chefon."
- altlerneja kandidato pri                            (L.L. Zamenhof)
  nordiaj lingvoj kaj literaturo