Advances in Role and Reference Grammar

OF NOMINATIVES AND DATIVES 485

3. Two examples of telescoping case-marking paradigms

Now let us consider the case-marking systems of a couple of examples I
have explored somewhat from this point of view, so as to understand the
position of the nominative/absolutive case-marking and the dative case-
marking in the overall schema. I think it is clear that the nominative/absolu­
tive, in fundamental or derived position, and the dative are the two funda­
mental case-markings of any case system, the two minimal cases (some­
times called nominative and oblique, note) for coding the central proposi-
tional case-relations and all others, the dative forming the fundamental set
of so-called "adverbial" case-relations as well as the marked member of the
opposition nominative/absolutive : dative. This is represented in Figure 8.

• A distinct case is a morphosyntactic category that specifically and differentially codes a canon­
  ical case-relation in a specified syntactic schema minimally distinct from the syntactic schema
  that employs nominative/absolutive : dative cases.

Figure 8

In fact, in terms of the four domains of conditioning of the so-called case-

marking surface indicators in languages, the lexical content, the proposi-

tional regimentation, the clause linkage, and the reference maintenance

domains, I would propose the following:

(3) The nominative/absolutive case-marked noun phrase and its

derived equivalents is the deleted noun phrase, and the dative-

marked noun phrase and its derived equivalents is the surviving

noun phrase, in structure-dependent "zero anaphora" (or total

deletion) or nearest equivalent in maximally tight linkages of

clause structures; or inversely.

This implies that there is some way to see a regular formal relationship

between such structures and more elaborated, less anaphorized, less linked,

less propositionally-regimented structures. That is, it suggests that the vari-