Of the
above, pene ‘some’, mena
an ‘many’ and kadukave ‘all’ also occur as nouns, the
first two forms meaning ‘something’.
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|
3.2.3. |
Cases |
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There are
eleven semantic cases in Karbi, viz., nominative, instrumental
associative, accusative, dative, purposive, genitive, locative,
allative, ablative and intrusive. The nominative is unmarked.
The locative and allative are sometimes marked. The
instrumental, intrusive, associative and ablative have the same
surface form -pen. The accusative, dative and purposive
have the same form -phan. All the cases except the
genitive is prefixed to the noun. Moreover whereas all the cases
except genitive show the relationship between the noun and the
predicate, the genitive shows the relationship between two
nouns.
|
The
nominative is the case of the surface object of a sentence.
It is not marked.
|
| ne pa pe?er |
‘I red the cloth’ |
| na
la iloknon |
‘you break it’ |
|
|
The
instrumental is the case of the instrument
with the help of which the action mentioned by the verb is
performed. It is expressed by the suffix -pen. |
|
|
ne kolompen-chi tok |
|
‘I write with a pen’
|
|
ari arvi-pen-chi alali
ketok
|
|
‘he writes with left hand’
|
|
phunu tari-pen rotnon
|
|
‘cut the banana with a knife’
|
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The associative case
expresses the accompaniment of a person or an animal with the
subject in doing the action mentioned by the verb. -pen
and loare the two
markers of this case.
|
|
la-pen na corapnon
|
|
‘you eat with him’
|
|
ne na-pen vapo
|
|
‘I will come with you’
|
|
komatchi neli-pen kelunji
|
|
‘who will sing with me?
|
|
la ne-pen vapo
]
|
|
la ne-lo nadunpo
]
|
|
‘he will come with me’
|
|
methan nelo nadunlo
|
|
‘the dog came with me’
|
logot, ri,
chaho and ri
chaho are the
other forms used to express this case.
|
|
ne nalogot
va
|
|
‘I will come with you’
|
