Morphological case involves any type of case marking that is phonologically bound (affixes, clitics, tone, alternation, vowel lengthening, etc.). Oblique NPs are NPs having a function other than S, A or P, e.g. dative, locative, ablative instrumental, comitative, location in time, etc. If a phonologically free adposition agrees in gender, number or person with the noun phrase, it does not count as a case marker for the purpose of this feature. Note that genitive or possessive are not seen as cases for this feature.
Warrongo (ISO 639-3: wrg, Glottolog: waru1264)
Warrongo has case markers on every element of the NP (Tsunoda 2011: 342ff) and is coded 1.
ngali nyina-ya jarribara-ngga yamba-ngga 1DU.NOM sit-IMP good-LOC camp-LOC ‘Let's sit down in the good camp.’ (Tsunoda 2011: 343)
Zuni (ISO 639-3: zun, Glottolog: zuni1245)
Zuni has a directional enclitic -kʷin and a locative enclitic -ʔan. No clear examples are given where we can check whether they really attach to the end of the noun phrase or just to the noun. In any case, Zuni is coded 1 for this feature.
kalapa-kʷin Gallup-DIR ‘(He went) to Gallup’ (Newman 1965: 66) kʔakʷe-'w-an house-PL-LOC ‘(We stayed) at their houses’ (Newman 1965: 66)
Ndam (ISO 639-3: ndm, Glottolog: ndam1251)
In Ndam, the locative of disyllabic nouns with mid-mid melody is formed by lowering the melody to low-low. Low-low nouns are turned into locatives by changing their melody to low-high (Broß 1988: 57-58). This triggers 1 for this feature.
būgō ‘house’ → bùgò ‘in the house’ gūjʌ̄n ‘my stomach’ → gùjʌ̀n ‘in my stomach’ gə̀lè ‘concession’ → gə̀lé ‘in the concession’ (Broß 1988: 58)
Fore (ISO 639-3: for, Glottolog: fore1270)
Fore marks allative case by means of the enclitic =ti (Scott 1978: 104, 109–111). This triggers 1 for this feature.
pi nkáu='i wa-y-e that place=ALL go-he-IND ‘He goes to that place.’ (Scott 1978: 109)
Holoholo (ISO 639-3: hoo, Glottolog: holo1240)
Various Bantu languages have one or more ‘locative noun classes’, which qualify as oblique case markers for the purposes of Grambank. Holoholo is a good example, having three 'locative' noun class 'prefixes' (classes 16, 17, 18 in Coupez 1955: 36, 38), which are in fact proclitics (they only attach to the noun, which is the first element of the noun phrase) and thus count as both prepositions and oblique case markers here. These languages are coded 1.
heelungu ha-lungu LOC-country ‘in the country’ (Coupez 1955: 38) kwilungu ku-lungu LOC-country ‘close to the country’ (Coupez 1955: 38) mwilungu mu-lungu LOC-country ‘in the country’ (Coupez 1955: 38)
Island Carib (ISO 639-3: crb, Glottolog: isla1278)
In Island Carib, the instrumental preposition áo ‘INS’ agrees with the noun in number and gender. When the noun is masculine, for example, the preposition carries the prefix l- ‘3SG.M’: l-áo ‘3SG.M-INS’. In principle, one could analyze l- as a constituent of the noun phrase, as a number-gender marker that acts as a host for case markers. For this feature, however, we consider it as an agreement marker on the preposition. Island Carib is coded 0 for this feature. See Rat (1898: 294) for examples and Josephs (2019: 51) on the agreement markers, which the author calls pronominal prefixes.
l-áo akúruku 3SG.M-INS creepers ‘with creepers’ (Rat 1898: 294) l-áo musiérc 3SG.M-INS leaves ‘with leaves’ (Rat 1898: 294)
Hokkaido Ainu (ISO 639-3: ain, Glottolog: ainu1240)
Hokkaido Ainu has no morphological cases whatsoever, and is coded 0 (cf. Tamura 2000).
Dryer, Matthew S. 2013. Position of case Affixes. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Haspelmath, Martin. 2009. Terminology of case. In Andrej L. Malchukov & Andrew Spencer (eds), The Oxford handbook of Case, 505–517. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Spencer, Andrew. 2009. Case as a Morphological Phenomenon. In Andrej L. Malchukov & Andrew Spencer (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Case (pp. 185–199). Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. Note that Spencer does not count clitics as morphological case, while in Grambank they are counted as such.
Broß, Michael. 1988. Materialen zur Sprache der Ndam von Dik (Republik Tschad): Untersuchungen zur Phonologie und Morphologie. Marburg: Philipps-Universität. (MA thesis.)
Coupez, André. 1955. Esquisse de la Langue Holoholo. (Annalen van het Koninglijk Museum van Belgisch-Congo: Reeks in 8, 12.) Belgique: Tervuren.
Josephs, Keisha Marie. 2019. A descriptive grammar of Kalinago. Tucson: University of Arizona. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Newman, Stanley. 1965. Zuni grammar. (University of New Mexico Publications in Anthropology, 14.) Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico Press.
Rat, Joseph Numa. 1898. The Carib Language as now spoken in Dominica, West Indies. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland XXVII. 293–315.
Scott, Graham. 1978. The Fore Language of Papua New Guinea. (Pacific Linguistics: Series B, 47.) Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.
Tamura, Suzuko. 2000. The Ainu language. (ICHEL Linguistic Studies, 2.) Tokyo: Sanseido.
Tsunoda, Tasaku. 2011. A grammar of Warrongo. (Mouton Grammar Library, 53.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
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| 0 | absent | 1184 | |
| 1 | present | 1041 | |
| ? | Not known | 150 |
| Name | Glottocode | Family | Macroarea | Contributor | Value | Source | Comment |
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