German Case Inventory [Bla94b]

German has 4 cases: NOM, ACC, GEN, DAT. This is the largest contiguous inventory possible without any peripheral (spatial) cases — exactly the "inner peripheral" boundary on Blake's hierarchy.

Syncretism

German has extensive syncretism, especially in the definite article:

• NOM/ACC syncretism: neuter and feminine (der/das/die paradigm)
• DAT/GEN syncretism: rare but occurs in some dialects

def German.Case.caseInventory : Finset Case

German 4-case inventory.

Equations

• German.Case.caseInventory = {Case.nom, Case.acc, Case.gen, Case.dat}

def German.Case.neuterSyncretism : Morphology.Case.Allomorphy.Syncretism

NOM/ACC syncretism in neuter and feminine. Instantiates the cross-linguistic NOM/ACC pattern from Morphology.Case.Allomorphy.

Equations

• German.Case.neuterSyncretism = Morphology.Case.Allomorphy.nomAccSyncretism