Detail #266: A Different Case System

For the longest while, I've wanted to come up with something that is like a case system, but still differs enough from the usual case systems that its "caseness" could even be questioned. I think I have come up with at least the core of such an idea now.

In the language, scope is a much more actively manipulated thing than it is in English. Not only the scope of negatives, but also of adverbs, verbs and even nouns are manipulated in some sense. However, manipulating the scope itself, and manipulating how a noun interacts with scope is done with the same markers, and some of the combinations of possible manipulations are not distinguished.

This is not a very thoroughly described system, more like the germinating seeds for one. 

The Cases

1. Nominative_{Scope 1}

Nominative is the noun with the topmost scope. It can, but needs not, include the verb in its scope. The verb can have separate markers depending on how it interacts with scope. No other case can have a finite verb in its scope.

Here are examples of the differences between "scope-internal" and "scope-external" verbs:

internal: John ate cheese and drank beer every friday

external: John ate cheese and Eric ate tofu: ate is left-extracted to give
ate John cheese, Eric tofu

Verbs external to nominative scope usually happen with coordinated structures as the one given above, and with constructions serving roles a bit like clefting.

A nominative noun signals the onset of a new scope.

2. Oblique_{Scope 1}

The pseudo-nominative can create it own, embedded scope, possibly with a non-finite verb. A non-finite verb can come in the spot previous to the noun itself as well. The pseudo-nominative appears as objects with complements (either verbs or adjectives), on relative pronouns, and on indirect objects, for whom a direct object is the 'complement'. Thus, the direct object is in the scope of the indirect object, which itself is in the pseudo-nominative. The pseudo-nominative can also be the possessor of the Nominative.

3. Accusative_{Scope 2}

The accusative is the main non-nominative NP of the scope under the verb (or under the indirect object). One of the main things scope 2 is affected by is negation. There are different negatives - one for every different scope.

4. Oblique_{Scope 2}

Same scope as Scope 2/Accusative, but less central. Often used with adpositions in the same scope. It is also basically the genitive attribute for non-nominatives. Most adverbials are scope 2.

5. Accusative_Scope3

Accusative/Scope 3 serves many of the same roles as the accusative and oblique, but is in a separate scope. Scope 3 is less often used, and therefore, case distinctions are fewer. Adverbials pertaining only to scope 3, arguments only pertaining to other scope 3 objects and obliques, etc, all go in this form.

6. Scopeless

Scopeless nouns appear as adverbials that are either sort of "semantically independent" - 'unfortunately' and the like. Things that do not express properties of the events, but rather the speaker's opinions of the things he says. They can also be topics, adverbs that apply to several scopes, etc. The scopeless negator only negates the very next scopeless word.