Dargwa (Tanti) Case Inventory @cite{sumbatova-2021} #

Dargwa (Tanti dialect; Nakh-Dagestanian) has a consistently ergative alignment system — unlike Georgian's tense-conditioned split. All transitive verbs mark the A-argument with ergative -li and leave the P-argument unmarked (absolutive). There is no split conditioning.

Grammatical Cases (Table 4.3 of @cite{sumbatova-2021}) #

Case	Morpheme	Function
absolutive	∅	S-argument, P-argument, nominal pred.
ergative	-li	A-argument, instrument
genitive	-la, -lla	nominal modifier, possessor
dative	-ž	experiencer, recipient, benefactive
comitative	-c:ele	comitative, instrument
adverbial	-le	nominal predicate, secondary predicate

The rich locative system (8 localizations × 4 orientations × 4 directions) is in Dargwa/Locatives.lean.

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def Fragments.Dargwa.Case.caseInventory :

Finset Core.Case

Dargwa grammatical case inventory: ABS(∅), ERG(-li), GEN(-la, -lla), DAT(-ž), COM(-c:ele), ADV(-le).

We use Core.Case values. The adverbial case is mapped to ess (essive) as the closest typological equivalent — it marks "being-in-a-state" predicates, analogous to the Finnish essive.

Genitive has two allomorphs: -la and -lla.

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Fragments.Dargwa.Case.caseInventory = {UD.Case.abs, UD.Case.erg, UD.Case.gen, UD.Case.dat, UD.Case.com, UD.Case.ess}

Instances For

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theorem Fragments.Dargwa.Case.inventory_not_strictly_contiguous :

¬Core.Case.IsValidInventory caseInventory

Dargwa's grammatical case inventory violates strict contiguity on Blake's hierarchy: COM (rank 1) and ESS (rank 0) are present without LOC (rank 3) or ABL/INST (rank 2). This is expected: Dargwa's rich locative system (8 localizations × 4 orientations) functionally covers spatial and source meanings that LOC and ABL encode in other languages. The grammatical vs. locative split is a structural feature of Nakh-Dagestanian languages.

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def Fragments.Dargwa.Case.alignment :

Core.AlignmentFamily

Dargwa alignment: consistently ergative — no tense/aspect split. Transitive A-arguments always take ergative -li; S and P arguments take unmarked absolutive.

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