Case Usages in Silindion

Case Usage

Silindion nouns can be inflected in 14 cases. The cases are nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, locative, allative, comitative, instrumental, copulative, essive, topical, adjectival. The benefactive is an extension of the dative, and is not in use in the modern language, except for in some grammatical tracts. In older forms of the language, it is widespread in the usage given below. The topical is also called relative, since it relates one noun to another, as explained below.

• Nominative indicates the subject of a verb. It is also used adpositionally, as in <Nanthalonis, i nista> "Nanthalonis, the king".

• Accusative indicates the object of a verb. It also indicates motion through a place or time, and is used with prepositions such as ‹ono› "through", ‹pero› "across" or ‹erë› "during".

• Genitive indicates the possessor. It is also used with various prepositions, such as ‹ess› "inside of" or ‹omë› "because of". It is also used as the object of a few verbs, namely <aneallo> "to promise", which is intransitive in High Silindion.

• Dative indicates the indirect object and the person or thing for which an action is done. The last usage is called the benefactive use, and in Old, Middle and some High Silindion texts, is indicated by an extra ‹-r› to the dative ending. An example of this is, <nistanu> "to the king" (dative) => <nistanur> "for the king" (benefactive).

• Ablative indicates separation, and is mostly used to translate 'from'. It is used with prepositions such as ‹ka› "away from" or ‹eis› "from out, out of". It is also used as the object of a few verbs, namely <moniello> "to hear", which is intransitive in High Silindion.

• Locative indicates place. It is used with prepositions such as ‹o› "in", ‹a› "at", ‹emë› "on", ‹eiva[n]› "within", ‹ina› "near" and many others. Metaphorically it also indicates time, and thus is used with prepositions like ‹nor› "before". It is also used, with the preposition <ompo> "over", to indicate the object of the verb <linyello> "to play an instrument". An example of this usage is, <lir empindo ompo i yalmavi> "the cantor plays upon a harp".

• Allative indicates motion towards a place. It is used with prepositions like ‹noro› 'towards' or ‹noss› "into". It is also used as the animate agent in passive sentences.

• Comitative means 'together with'. If two or more nouns are animate, they may be connected by adding the comitative suffix to the last noun. An example of this usage is, <pëa mëamma> "a father and a mother". Occasionally this usage is seen with inanimate nouns as well.

• Instrumental indicates the instrument with which something is done, or how something is done. Thus it means both 'using X' and 'by doing X'. It also indicates what something is made out of. It is not often used with animate nouns.

• Copulative is attached to a noun or interrogative pronoun to form sentences meaning 'X = Y'. An example of this is, <i nar lavando> "the man is a hunter". It is only used to link two [pro]nouns together, not a [pro]noun with an adjective.

• Essive is attached to a predicate nominative or interrogative pronoun to form sentences meaning 'It = Y'. That is, when the predicate nominative is the only element present. It is mostly used with a definite predicate, although indefinite predicates may occur as well. An example of this is, <kirmeihya> "it is my ship" (<- <kirma> "ship"). The essive also means 'as' or 'when', such as in the following sentence, <nópië, asui Eril nëa némpian niva> "as a poet, Eril created many beautiful poems" (<- <nopio> "poet"). Finally, in Poetic High Silindion only, the essive may be used to derive an adjective from a noun. However, in Low Silindion this is done with the adjectival. In some poems, the essive seems to have the same meaning as the topical, depending on translation.

• Relative/Topical indicates the topic of the sentence. In this sense, it can be translated as 'as for X' or 'about X'. Most of the time however, the relative is used to derive an adjective meaning 'X-like', such as the word ‹rilitma› "jewel-like". The topical is also used to mean 'as X', after an equative adjective. Another use of the relative is to mean 'but' after the conjunction ‹në› "and". However, this use is restricted to sentences of the form 'X, but as for Y'. An example of this is, <ihyotma, ë niva, në tahyotma, ië núkil> "today, (it) is beautiful, but (as for) yesterday, (it) was cloudy" (<- <tahyón> "yesterday").

• Adjectival derives an adjective from a noun. Mostly the meaning is transparent, such as in the following examples, <vierya émëa> "forest paths, paths of the forest" (<- <ema> "forest"), <nerendo núkëa> "wilderness dweller, dweller in the wilderness" (<- <nuko> "wilderness"). However, sometimes the meaning is not that obvious, such as in the following examples, <silnëa> "silver" (<- <silni> "star"), <ilië> "holy" (<- <ilë> "god").