Dairwueh: Person-Specific Quirky Case

Certain verbs in Dairwueh have no forms for some set of persons, generally one or both of first and second person. Most of these in fact only have third person singular forms. Whenever the subject is "missing" for a verb, it can be formed by having that person's pronoun as a quirky case subject.

The entries below are given as root (meaning) (persons missing) case.

Examples:

mogar (rot) (I, II) acc
ebas (lose, misplace) (I) dat
konav  (bequeath to*) (I) acc
atisal (have sufficient stature to reach something) (I, II) gen
embor (appear to be) (IIsg) loc-instr
adval (displease) (Isg, IIsg) acc
saŋəst (remain) (Isg) loc-instr
lohak (fear) (Isg, Ipl, IIpl) dat

All of these do permit having first and second person subjects. These, however, require oblique marking. The oblique marking will also extend to nouns coordinated or apposite to such a subject. Some examples:

je	moga	-Ø	|	moga	-r
it	rot	3sgI	|	rot	3sgII

it rots

ve	-na	moga	-r
I	-acc	rot	3sgII

I rot

Je, it, is third person, and therefore does not behave in any extraordinary way. Ver, I, however, cannot stand as a nominative subject of mogar, but mogar permits accusative subjects for first and second person, and therefore we get the accusative vena.

These kinds of subjects, unlike the nominative ones, require the 3sg II verb. As mentioned, coordination and apposition do also get affected:

ve	-na	erha	-na	kona	-š	mik	-e
I	-acc	king	-acc	bequeath	-3sgII_neg	nothing	neut_acc

I, the king, bequeath nothing

Normally, erha kona(v/š) would be permissible, but since it's in apposition with ver, which cannot stand in the nominative as subject of konav, it must agree in case therewith.
Contrast with the situation where only the third person subject is present:

erha	-(a)t	kona	(-:v)	kauda	-nu	gir	jera	-lir
king	-gen	bequeath(3sg)	(3sgII)	power	-fem.acc	along	daughter	-dat_fem with dis- similation of -rir

the king bequeathed (his) power to (his) daughter

Note that erha is in the genitive because it's a transitive verb with a definite subject - a slightly ergative pattern in Dairwueh. Contrast with the following, where both a first person and a third person NP is present - the first person pronoun that has to take accusative as subject of this verb also makes the other noun do so:

ve	-na	sa	erha	-na	emb	-e	dəŋak	-un	-əi
I	-acc	and	king	-masc_acc	appear	3sgII_past	fight	active present participle	masc_plur

 I and the king appeared to be fighting/enemies

Contrast to the next clause, where both subjects are third person, and therefore do trigger person/number congruence, and do not have any curious case marking:

erha	sa	kunər	-ta	emb-	ari		dəŋak	-un	-əi
king	and	tribe	-fem_plur	appear	3pl past, indicative		fight	active present participle	masc_plur

the king and the tribes appeared to be enemies

Since embor is intransitive, erha is in the nominative despite being definite.

* The noun to whom something is bequeathed is marked by the preposition gir, 'along, through'.