10-01-2023, 04:11 PM
This is a thread I started over at Anthrogenica four years ago:
Is there a relationship between the genitive case and preposition-less locative in Indo-European languages, and is there an Indo-European tendency to move towards using the dative forms with prepositions instead? Looking up „dom” on Wiktionary, I see that it's the same in genitive as in locative, i.e. „domu”; are prepositions a must for the locative or can it be used without prepositions, like in the famous Latin phrase «Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more; si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi» (which should be «Si fueris in Roma, Romano vivito more; si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi» if the ablative case with a preposition had been used instead?)? Romae is the genitive, dative and archaic preposition-less locative form of Roma.
Another example from Latin is that the adverb domi (eng. at home) is the same as the genitive singular and archaic preposition-less locative singular (interestingly, it seems as there isn't an archaic preposition-less locative plural form of domus) form of domus (eng. home or house). In Russian too, the genitive singular form of “house” (rus. до́ма) is the same as the adverb for “at home” (rus. до́ма), while the prepositional singular form is declined in the same manner as the dative singular and prepositional singular forms of feminine nouns (rus. до́ме). Then there is apparently a separate locative form of «дом» declined as «дому́» (which is the same as the masculine dative singular form); can the special locative forms be used without prepositions or are prepositions still a must like they are for the prepositional case?
In Icelandic, the adverb „heima“ (corresponding to the Swedish adverb »hemma« (eng. at home)) is the same as the indefinite genitive plural and indefinite accusative plural form of „heimur“ (eng. home).
I am sorry for the messy OP! If anything in this OP is wrong, don't hesitate to correct me.
Anglesqueville posted one post in that thread:
Is there a relationship between the genitive case and preposition-less locative in Indo-European languages, and is there an Indo-European tendency to move towards using the dative forms with prepositions instead? Looking up „dom” on Wiktionary, I see that it's the same in genitive as in locative, i.e. „domu”; are prepositions a must for the locative or can it be used without prepositions, like in the famous Latin phrase «Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more; si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi» (which should be «Si fueris in Roma, Romano vivito more; si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi» if the ablative case with a preposition had been used instead?)? Romae is the genitive, dative and archaic preposition-less locative form of Roma.
Another example from Latin is that the adverb domi (eng. at home) is the same as the genitive singular and archaic preposition-less locative singular (interestingly, it seems as there isn't an archaic preposition-less locative plural form of domus) form of domus (eng. home or house). In Russian too, the genitive singular form of “house” (rus. до́ма) is the same as the adverb for “at home” (rus. до́ма), while the prepositional singular form is declined in the same manner as the dative singular and prepositional singular forms of feminine nouns (rus. до́ме). Then there is apparently a separate locative form of «дом» declined as «дому́» (which is the same as the masculine dative singular form); can the special locative forms be used without prepositions or are prepositions still a must like they are for the prepositional case?
In Icelandic, the adverb „heima“ (corresponding to the Swedish adverb »hemma« (eng. at home)) is the same as the indefinite genitive plural and indefinite accusative plural form of „heimur“ (eng. home).
I am sorry for the messy OP! If anything in this OP is wrong, don't hesitate to correct me.
Anglesqueville posted one post in that thread:
Anglesqueville Wrote:This tendency obviously exists in vernacular Germanic languages. Think for example of the use of "til" in Norwegian (Bkm) (I don't remember if this use is usual in Swedish). By the way (my post is messy as well) in modern Icelandic "til" doesn't call the Dative, which would be expected, but the Genitive. And in Iceland, for the anecdote, happened a few years ago, a curious and scary phenomenon that the people inside the official commissions for the preservation of the Icelandic called "Invasion of Dative": of course it was the increasing use of Prep+Dative in place of Genitive to express the possession. In some Germanic languages, there is at least something like a hesitation between Genitive and Dative. Does this hesitation have its deep roots in the history of IE morphologic tendencies? I do not know.