Case syncretism of nouns (Surgut Khanty)

SyncCoreCase: Nouns show case marking, and syncretism occurs only in core cases.


(1) āmp wū-ʌ-əm.

I dog see-prs-1sg

‘I see the dog.’


(2) āmp mān-t wū-ʌ.

dog I-acc see-prs.3sg

‘The dog sees me.’


(3) īmp-əm pəʌ-ɣən nēwi-ɣən.

I dog-1sg ear-du white-du

’My dog’s ears are white.’


(4) īki-ja ńāń mə-ʌ-əm.

I man-lat bread give-prs-1sg

’I’m giving bread to the man.’


(5) īki mā-ntem ńāń mə-ʌ.

man I-dat bread give-prs.3sg

‘The man is giving bread to me.’


In Surgut Khanty, the core cases are syncretistic, as the subject, the object and the possessive adjunct all take the nominative case (1)(3). The personal pronouns have distinct accusative (2) and dative (5) forms. The dative is missing from the noun case-marking paradigm, and it is substituted by the lative -a or the approximative -nam (4) suffixes.

Author: 

Márta Csepregi