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A set of sentences showing these case relationships are given below :

nom. ino akģlo wś `I went home’
Acc. Ino li ithulu `I saw her’
  1 2 3  1 3 2
Dat. ino ana lakhģ li cwya `I gave her a daughter’
  1 2 3 4 5  1 5 4 3 2
Gen. li kģ `her house’
  1 2      1  2
Instrumental ino aks lakhģpe li heqhi `I beat her with a stick’
  1 2 3 4 5 6     1 6 5  4  3    2
location niye alulo mla ceni `I work in the field’(lit. I field in do habitual)
  1 2 3 4 5    1      2       3       4      5

A brief discussion of the individual case relationships in Sema follows:
1. Nominative :
The nominative case usually indicates the subject of the sentence. In Sema the nominative case indicates the logical subject of the sentence, i.e., the nominative case marker is obligatorily taken by the logical subject when the logical subject ceases to be the grammatical subject, whereas when both the logical and grammatical subjects are identical, the case marker may or may not be used. no marks the nominative case relations. as in :

ino akģlo wś `I went home’
asbono akģ wlawya `the tree damaged the house’
akģye asbono welawya `the house was damaged by the tree’
niye acno mikiwą `I was bitten by a dog’

In the last two illustrative sentences, the logical subjects were the grammatical objects of the respective sentences. Despite that, the logical subjects showed the nominative case relationship is otherwise indicated by the structure of the sentence. The nominative case marker is usually not taken in the following five situations.
(a) When the noun/pronoun functioning as the subject is in construction with the definite particle hu, as in :

asbohu kusolu anģ `the tree is yonder’
1 2 3 4   2 1 4 3
anuhu thuś anģ `the child is growing’

(b) When the noun functioning as the subject is in construction with a demonstrative adjective. as in :

timģ hipaqó qhemFai `those men are tall’(lit. man that (PI) tall’
1 2 3 4    1 2 3 4

(c) When the subject is a third person in the singular, as in :

li khilamu kha `she is nowhere’
pa likģ wśwya `he went to her house’

(d) When the predicate is a locative verb phrase as in :

opu hbile anģ `your son is here’
panół tile śwya `they went there’

(e) When the subject takes a focus marker, as in :

niye alulo mla cenģ `I work in the field’ etc.

It may be pertinent to mention a few words about the use and function of the focus marker ye in relation to the nominative marker no. The difference in the use of the two forms, viz., ye and no lies basically on whether or not the noun concerned is in the focus, i.e., when a noun or pronoun is used in a general sense, the form no is used, whereas if the noun/pronoun concerned is to be brought to the focus, for instance, to a query `who went’ to the house?’ if the reply need to focus that it is I and not someone else who went to the house, the focus marker ye rather than no is used with the pronoun for I.
When a sentence is in the passive construction, the grammatical subject invariably takes the focus marker, the nominative case marker being taken by the logical subject, as in :

liye ino hiqhewyį `she was beaten by me’
akģye inaino sie `the house was built by Inai’
niye acno mikiwį `I was bitten by dog’
akģye asbono welawya `the house was damaged by tree’ etc.

 

 

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