Suffixaufnahme ( German: [ˈzʊfɪksˌaʊfˌnaːmə] , "suffix resumption"), also known as case stacking , is a linguistic phenomenon used in forming a genitive construction , whereby prototypically a genitive noun agrees with its head noun. The term Suffixaufnahme itself is literally translated as "taking up of suffixes", which can be interpreted as the identical case marking of different but referentially-related phrases, with the presumption that nominal phrases possess a flat or non-configurational syntax. Across syntactic theories, case is seen as a bundle of features, and case agreement as the identity of case features. It was first recognized in Old Georgian and some other Caucasian and ancient Middle Eastern languages as well as many Australian languages , and almost invariably coincides with agglutinativity .
9-413: The usage of case stacking is not limited to genitive constructions, although the genitive case is involved in the majority of occurrences across languages. Cross-linguistic variations in case stacking representation and functions can be found. In general, case-stacking describes the phenomenon whereby a single word may bear multiple cases reflecting its relation to a number of different syntactic elements. It
18-441: A syntactic node n , of a morphosyntactic feature value associated with n ." In this example, all three words are dominated by the matrix DP node, and all three bear a proprietive case (PROP). The words within the subordinate DP [ balarrinabawu dangkanabawu ] ('white man') are dominated by both the matrix and the subordinate node, so both bear the inflectional ablative case (ABL) and proprietive case (PROP). This clearly illustrates
27-413: Is important in the development of theories of inflectional morphology and the establishment of the relation between morphology and syntax. In Kayardild , the combination of adnominal cases (ablative and genitive) in possessor-like functions, and various relational and adverbial (e.g., spatial) cases is common. Case functions may be combined where ablative functions similar to a genitive adnominal case, and
36-431: The instrumental case is applied to the entire NP, as seen in the following example : dan-kinaba-nguni this- ABL - INS dangka-naba-nguni man- ABL - INS mirra-nguni good- INS walbu-nguni raft- INS dan-kinaba-nguni dangka-naba-nguni mirra-nguni walbu-nguni this-ABL-INS man-ABL-INS good-INS raft-INS 'with this man's good raft' (Evans 1995: 105) From this example, all words of
45-456: The limits of the domain through the repetition of all nouns in the scopal domain of a clause-level inflectional category. The modal cases is used to define the boundaries of clauses. Case-stacking is closely relevant to the concept of concord, which has also been studied in other case-stacking languages such as Lardil and Australian languages in general. The term "concord" is defined as " the morphological realization, on multiple words dominated by
54-414: The man's net.' (Kracht 2003: 37) In this example, every item is marked by the oblique case (OBL), which indicates the non–indicative mood. The object is marked with the modal ablative case (MABL) and the instrumental adjunct by the instrumental (INST), and the possessor phrase by an additional genitive (GEN) as well. In addition, Kayardild also has a system of modal (i.e., aspect-mood) cases, which involves
63-419: The men for a long time, getting ready for (the dance) tonight.' (Evans 1995: 109) The modal locative (MLOC) marks two constituents as being in the scope of the (unmarked) "instantiated" verb category, whereas the utilitive case (UTIL) expresses an expected use. Case-stacking and concord One of the functions of the modal cases proposed by Heath (2010) is that, such internal operation of case-stacking may mark
72-842: The relevant phrase share the case marking which is assigned to the phrase as a whole, namely, the instrumental case. This follows Evans's (1995) total concord principle, which states that case inflections are distributed over all sub-constituents regardless of the level they are originated from (i.e., the head or its dependents). A similar example can be illustrated: Maku-ntha woman- OBL yalawu-jarra-ntha catch- PAST - OBL yakuri-naa-ntha fish- MABL - OBL dangka-karra-nguni-naa-ntha man- GEN - INST - MABL - OBL mijil-nguni-naa-ntha net- INST - MABL - OBL Maku-ntha yalawu-jarra-ntha yakuri-naa-ntha dangka-karra-nguni-naa-ntha mijil-nguni-naa-ntha woman-OBL catch-PAST-OBL fish-MABL-OBL man-GEN-INST-MABL-OBL net-INST-MABL-OBL 'The woman must have caught fish with
81-650: The use of the same case suffixes found in the adnominal and adverbial systems. Non-subject NPs are marked for a case category that is determined by the aspect-mood domain they are in. For example, if the verb has the past suffixal inflection, all non-subject nouns will then bear the modal ablative case (MABL). birangkarra long.time bi-l-da 3 - PL - NOM mardala-tha paint- ACT dangka-walath-i, man-a.lot- MLOC ngimi-marra-y night- UTIL - MLOC birangkarra bi-l-da mardala-tha dangka-walath-i, ngimi-marra-y long.time 3-PL-NOM paint-ACT man-a.lot-MLOC night-UTIL-MLOC 'They have been painting
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