CASES IN CRASIS!

Although I do not regret the speculation on the "ablative" in which I indulged, it seemed unsatisfactory: I had established the reason for the prepositions me and e taking the nominative case, but the rest of the case system for singular persons were mysterious in origin. The existence of pronominal cases only in the singular number suggests a recent origin; languages which have attenuated their case systems possess a variety of cases for the plural pronouns, even if they are not quite as numerous, just as nominal declensions have fewer forms in the plural.

I have undertaken an analysis and decided that there are really only two underlying cases, the nominative and the genitive (which, by virtue of its status as "the case which is not the nominative", ought to be labeled the objective case.) The nominative case appears to be composed of a "subject marker" 'o placed before the bare nominatives. The 1st and 3rd person nominative regard the subject marker as optional but enclitic if present, with an excrescent w (since epenthesis is a vocalic phenomenon) in the 1st person; the 2nd person has either grafted the subject marker or confused the first syllable of the nominative with the subject marker. The genitive cases of the personal pronouns have alternate forms, depending on the a-o (herein referred to as the alienable-inalienable) distinction. The most striking facet of these genitives is the homophony between the 1st person nominative case without the subject marker (au) and the inalienable form of the 2nd person genitive case (au). It is possible that the ancestral forms were more distinct, and it is astonishing what degrees of overlap various languages permit without apparent confusion. I could quote some Egyptian examples, but that would overextend this post, verbally and graphically.

The eponymous "cases in crasis" are the possessive and dative cases.These cases are characterized by initial k and n, respectively, but otherwise correspond exactly with the forms of the genitive. This correspondance is no accident, because the forms of the possessive and dative derive from the crasis, or linguistic compression, of propositions with the genitive case forms of the appropriate persons, substantially no different than the "first ablative" ma. The preposition ka/ko means "belonging to", while na/no means "for, concerning, on account of". The corresponding forms, therefore, to the 3rd person genitive ana/ona are possessive kana/kona and dative nana/nona. Perhaps at some point the possessive forms, to pick an example, were the phrases ka ana and ko ona, which provided not only an environment likely to induce crasis, but also reduplicated the culturally significant alienable-inalienable distinction.

The situation of the accusative is more vexing, regarding the enclitic nature of the object marker (since it cannot be a subject marker), the alternation of the two accusative object markers, and mix of the nominative and genitive forms as objects of the preposition i or ia. The only  accusative form with the object marker attached is the 1st person alienable form ia'u. The other accusative forms (ia oe, ia ia) use the alternate (longer) form of the object and are not attached; these use the nominative case for the object of the preposition. The shorter form of the preposition accompanying the inalienable forms (i o'u, i ou, i ona) takes the genitive case. The most vexing point in the accusative case complex is the alienable genitive case in the 1st person, when the equivalent forms in the 2nd and 3rd persons have the nominative. Perhaps *i au or *iau (from *i au or crasis of *ia au) has too much potential confusion with the 2nd person alienable genitive form.

                         1st person                   2nd person                    3rd person
Nominative       'owau, au                      'oe                                'oia, ia
Genitive            a'u, o'u                         au, ou                            ana, ona
Possessive        ka'u, ko'u                     kau, kou                        kana, kona
Dative               na'u, no'u                     nau, nou                         nana, nona
Accusative         ia'u, i o'u nei, la            ia 'oe, i ou la, nei             ia ia, i ona la
Ablative 1          ma o'u la, nei                ma ou la, nei                  ma ona la, nei
Ablative 2          mai o'u aku, mai           mai ou aku, mai              mai ona aku, mai
Ablative 3          me au                          me oe                             me ia
Ablative 4          e au                             e ia                                 e ia