Dear Metsis, dear RiotNrrd.

I agree with RiotNrrd. Cases are Buy-One-Get-One-Free. You can have a languages without cases (e.g. Mandarin), but as soon you get one case you end up having at least two.

Cases are morphologically marked on either the word itself (dependent-marking, e.g. Esperanto, Finnish, German, English) or on the word it depends on (head-marking, e.g. Q’eqchi’, K’ichee, Kaqchikel). Let’s assume for a minute that the hypothetical language Metsis presented (which I will call Metsisob’aal) is dependent-marking like Esperanto.

We know three nouns in Metsisob’aal: “kitti” which means “cat”; “metsis” which means “a Finn”; and “nornen” which means “a Guatemalan”. If we have a case for marking direct objects, we need to mark it somehow, let’s say the direct-object-forms of these nouns are “keitti”, “maitsis”and “naurnen”. Now each noun has two forms: “kitti” vs “keitti”, etc; and we end up having not one case but two cases. Case A “kitti” and case B “keitti”.

Can you then call this one case nominative?

I think the first step towards naming these cases is to look at how the grammarians of Metsisob’aal name them. If they call “kitti” the nude case and “keitti” the clothed case, maybe call them “nudive” and “vestitive” case. If they call “kitti” the sun case and “keitti” the moon case, maybe call them “solar” and “lunar” case.

If we want to compare the cases of Metsisob’aal to the cases present in other languages, we might want to see how the relate to transitive and intransitive verbs. Let’s say that the circumposition “la ~ (a)n” is used for the subject of transitive verbs and governs the A/nudive/solar case, while the B/vestitive/lunar case is used for their objects. Let’s assume “bait” is a transitive verb that means “bite, bites, bit, biting” and “ran” is an intransitive verb that means “run, runs, run, running”. Word order is free. Hence a transitive proposition would look something like this.

Bait la kitti n maitsis = Bait maitsis la kitti n = La kitti n bait maitsis = La kitti n matsis bait = Maitsis la kitti n bait = Maitsis bait la kitti n. = The cat bit the Finn.

Bait keitti la metsis an = etc = The Finn bit the cat.

If now an intransitive proposition looks like that “Ran la nornen an”, then I would see no reason, why not to call “naurnen/maitsis/keitti” accusative.

However, if an intransitive proposition looks like that “Ran naurnen”, then I would see no reason, why not to call “naurnen/maitsis/keitti” absolutive.

If "nornen/metsis/kitti" always appear dependent on other words (prepositions, circumpositions, etc; e.g. "la ~ (a)n" ) then we could call that case a "prepositive".

But names are only Schall und Rauch.

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If Metsisob'aal is a natural language, I think the constellation "bait la kitti n maitis" with "ran naurnen" is a lot more probable than "bait la kitti n maitis" with "ran la nornen an". But I might be completely wrong. I would also expect that Metsisob'aal defaults to VOS / OVS / SOV / SVO word order, but not to VSO / OSV.

Can you then call this one case nominative?

The labelling depends on the alignment of the language. Something along these lines:

1. Nom-Acc:
Accusative: –n. Nominative: –∅.

Manĝas pomon viro.
Kuras viro.
Falas pomo.

2. Erg-Abs
Absolutive: –∅. Ergative: –r.

Manĝas pomo viror.
Kuras viro.
Falas pomo.

3. Tripartite
Accusative: –n. Ergative: –r. Intransitive: –∅.

Manĝas pomon viror.
Kuras viro.
Falas pomo.

4. Sta-Act
Stative: –∅. Active: –r.

Manĝas pomo viror.
Kuras viror.
Falas pomo.

vir malUM edit
vir currit
malUM cadit
servUS puerUM vidit

Tradicie:
Nominativo: ∅ aŭ -us aŭ -um
Accuzativo: -um

Alternative:
Active: ∅ aŭ -us
Stative: -um

sergejm:vir malUM edit
vir currit
malUM cadit
servUS puerUM vidit

Tradicie:
Nominativo: ∅ aŭ -us aŭ -um
Accuzativo: -um

Alternative:
Active: ∅ aŭ -us
Stative: -um

Unfortunately, active-stative alignment is not an alternative. If Latin were act-sta, then we would have "*virum cadit", but it is "vir cadit".

As in all IE languages the nominative of neuter nouns has the same form as the accusative. If you replace "malum" with "fructus" the nom-acc alignment (and the impossibility of an act-sta interpretation) becomes obvious.

vir fructum edit
vir currit
fructus cadit (if it were act-sta, we would have fructum here)

The same with "malum", but colour-coded:

vir malum (acc) edit
vir currit
malum (nom) cadit

And you are completely right about the endings in the singular:

m/f nom: -∅ (puer, femina, oratio) / -s (amicus, Aeneas, custos, dies, fructus)
m/f acc: -m (puerum, feminam, orationem, amicum, Aeneam, custodem, diem, fructum)

n nom = n acc: -∅ (carmen, cornu) / -m (templum)

Similarly the plural:

m/f nom: -i (amici, pueri, feminae) / -s (orationes, custodes, dies, fructus)
m/f acc: -s (amicos, pueros, feminas, orationes, custodes, dies, fructus)

n nom = n acc: -a (templa, carmina, cornua)

Yes, classical Latin is aready Nominative/Accusative.
This only means that ancessor language of Latin (and Russian) didn't have Accusative.
But unfortunatey, PIE was not written language and may be this reconstruction is wrong.

Wow! I cannot say anything but wow. I was merely thinking out loud, why I have not met any notion about a language with just one case, i.e. whenever I have seen case is mentioned, there has been at least two. By the case I here refer to what Nornen referred by the term dependent-marking. But I see now that the minimum is two. Thank you, both RiotNrrd and Nornen!

With the labelling question I was referring to that that the part of speech "which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective" (from Wikipedia) and that part is called nominative. I had somehow naive assumption that the case names are more or less the same in all languages (since nominative, genitive, accusative etc. are all part of a Latin-based nomenclature), so terms like "nudive" and "vestitive" were eye-opening ones.

This Lernu never cease to amaze me, how an "innocent" question, why we have accusative, turns into a debate in Latin

sergejm:Yes, classical Latin is aready Nominative/Accusative.
This only means that ancessor language of Latin (and Russian) didn't have Accusative.
But unfortunatey, PIE was not written language and may be this reconstruction is wrong.

Ok, now I understand your previous post. I misread it.

Indeed, the fact that in all IE languages the nominatives and accusatives of nouns share the same form, has baffled many (Beekes, Kortlandt, Gamkrelidze, Ivanov, Schmalstieg et alii) and made them think that at some early stage PIE was not nom-acc, but erg-abs.
The Slavic languages even more strongly support this theory as even with masculine nouns the nominative and the accusative are the same, if and only if these nouns are inanimate.

Nom-Acc languages hand out cases nilly-willy. Every noun gets a nominative and an accusative. Erg-Abs languages are a bit more exclusive about this. While every noun has an absolutive form, the ergative case is not a given; alas, it must be earned.

Ergative for the noun “god”? Sure, here you are.
Ergative for the noun “woman”? Sure, here you are.
Ergative for the noun “baby”? Hmmm, maybe.
Ergative for the noun “dog”? Probably yes.
Ergative for the noun “bug”? Probably not.
Ergative for the noun “stone”? The heck, no!

Ergativity requires agency, which in turn requires animacy. In this context I understand “animacy” as “having a mind”, and “agency” as “being able to take decisions and act upon them”. Only if a noun has agency (is deemed to have agency), it merits the very noble ergative case.

It seems quite well established that PIE had two nominal categories: animate and inanimate (from which later developed the three categories masculine, feminine and neuter). And from a survival point of view this makes complete sense: The animacy scale is at the same time the danger scale. Does a stone (inanimate) pose a danger? By itself, it doesn’t. Does a bug (animate) pose a danger? It well might. Does a tiger (having agency) pose a danger? It surely does.

Now if PIE indeed was erg-abs at some point, then “man” would have both an absolutive and an ergative form, while “stone” would only have an absolutive. This bars inanimate nouns from being subjects of transitive clauses, which makes complete sense and which is the case in (all? many? some?) erg-abs languages of today.

The stone (+abs) is heavy. The man (+abs) is old.
The man (+erg) broke the stone (+abs).
The stone (+abs) fell on my head.
The man (+erg) killed the tiger (+abs) with a stone (instrumental or something).

However: *The stone (+erg) killed the tiger (+abs).
This clause is impossible (stone cannot be ergative) and actually nonsensical. Stones cannot do something like killing. The same way guns cannot kill people.

At some later point, PIE switched to the much more permissive nom-acc alignment. The reasons for this are speculative and many-fold. Maybe some influence from a substrate or adstrate? Maybe some nouns ended up in the “wrong” category, i.e. neuter nouns which do indeed have agency? This could be due to derivation as in German, where “girl” (Mädchen) is neuter only because it is a derived diminutive (Mädchen < Magd (f) + chen) and all diminutives are neuter. We don’t know why, but it did happen.

Basically the old ergative became the new nominative and the old absolutive became the new accusative. But this posed a huge problem. How to say “The stone is big”? We need a nominative of “stone”, but the nominative is the old ergative and “stone” never had an ergative. Solution was simple: just take the only existing form of inanimate (neuter) nouns for both cases.

This neatly explains the “nominative equals accusative” rule for all neuter nouns in IE languages and also the “nominative equals accusative” rule for all (¿?) masculine inanimate nouns in Slavic languages.

What a journey.

metsis:I had somehow naive assumption that the case names are more or less the same in all languages (since nominative, genitive, accusative etc. are all part of a Latin-based nomenclature), so terms like "nudive" and "vestitive" were eye-opening ones.

When the first Spanish missionaries arrived in Guatemala (XVIth century) they started to study the Mayan languages, because it is quite a challenge to spread the Word of God if nobody understands you. Among them was Fray Bartolomé de las Casas who worked with the Q’eqchi’. He published the first Spanish-Q’eqchi’ dictionary and the first Q’eqchi’ grammar.

He was a scholar (and spoke at least Spanish, Latin and Greek, all IE, all nom-acc) and figured out quite quickly that there are two cases. One case marked by in—at—∅—oo—ex—e’ and another marked by w/in—aaw/aa—r/x—q/qa—eer/ee—e'r/e'x [1] [2].

But he couldn’t manage to match those two cases to any two cases he knew from Latin or Greek. Why is “the man” in “The man is old” and “The man ate the fruit” in a different case? Shouldn’t both be nominative? Why is “the fruit” in “The fruit is sweet” and “The man ate the fruit” in the same case? Shouldn’t the first be nominative and the latter accusative? [3]

In the end, he refrained from naming these cases (maybe he just gave up). To the day, the ergative affixes are simply called “juego A” (set A) and the absolutive affixes “juego B” (set B).

metsis:This Lernu never cease to amaze me, how an "innocent" question, why we have accusative, turns into a debate in Latin

On lernu, rabbit holes are abundant and quickly dug.

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[1] The variants before the dash appear before vowels and the ones behind the dash before consonants.

[2] There are also affixes for stative and possessive, but the stative ones are just variations of the absolutive ones and the possessive ones of the ergative ones.

[3] Mama’∅ li winq.
X∅xtzaka li u li winq.
Ki’∅ li u.