Product Code Database
In grammar, the comitative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English language, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role. Other uses of "with", like in the meaning of "using" or "by means of" (I cut bread with a knife), correspond to the instrumental case or related cases.
In this case, il professore is the accompanier, i suoi studenti is the companion, and con is the relator. As the accompanier, il professore is the most prominent.
Animacy also plays a major role in most languages with a comitative case. One group of languages requires both the accompanier and the companion to be either human or animate. Another group requires both to be in the same category: both human or both animate. A third group requires an animate accompanier and an inanimate companion. Other languages have no restrictions based on animacy.
The comitative relates to an accompanier and a companion, and the instrumental relates to an agent, an object, and a patient. Enrique Palancar defines the role of Instrumental case as 'the role played by the object the Agent manipulates to achieve a change of state of the Patient.' Even though the difference is straightforward, because the instrumental and the comitative are expressed the same way in many languages, including English language, it is often difficult to separate them.
Russian is one of many languages that differentiate morphologically between instrumental and comitative:
In Russian, the comitative is marked by adding a preposition с and by declining the companion in the instrumental case; the design с мамой as a whole becomes comitative. In the instrumental case, the object is declined, but no preposition is added.
The comitative case is often confused with the associative case. Before the term comitative was applied to the accompanier-companion relationship, the relationship was often called associative case, a term still used by some linguists.
It is important to distinguish between the comitative and the associative because the associative also refers to a specific variety of the comitative case that is used in Hungarian.
Comitative relations are also commonly expressed by using prepositions: prepositions, postpositions and circumpositions. Examples of languages that use adpositional constructions to express comitative relations are French, which uses prepositions; Wayampi language, which uses postpositions; and Bambara language, which uses circumpositions.
Adverb can also mark comitative relations, but they act very similarly to adpositions. One language that uses adverbs to mark the comitative case is Latvian.
The final way in which comitative relations can be expressed is by serial-verb constructions. In these languages, the comitative marker is usually a verb whose basic meaning is "to follow". A language which marks comitative relations with serial-verb constructions is Chinese language.
In the example above, ar is used because Rudolf, the companion, is in accusative and singular. Below, it is used in the other case that it is allowed, with a dative plural companion.
while "with his/her big ships" is
It is rarely used and is mainly a feature of formal literary language, appearing very rarely in everyday speech.
The much more common, less formal way of expressing "with" is with the postposition kanssa, e.g., suurten laivojensa kanssa . The two forms may contrast, however, since the comitative always comes with the possessive suffix and thus can only be used when the agent has some sort of possession of the thing expressed by the main noun. For instance, Ulkoministeri jatkaa kollegoineen neuvotteluja sissien kanssa, , has kollegoineen contrasted with sissien kanssa , the former "possessed", the latter not.
Colloquial Finnish also has the postposition kaa, derived from kanssa and cognate with the Estonian -ga. With pronouns it is written as a suffix, -kaa. Compare also Ingrian language -nka/-nkä, e.g., talonka .
It is expressed through the suffix -in in the singular and -iguin in the plural.
An example of the object use in Northern Sami is Dat láve álo riidalit isidi in . An example of the adverbial use is Mun čálán bleahka in .
However, the comitative case marker cannot be used if the companion has a plural marker. So when the comitative marker is added to a noun, it obscures whether that noun is singular or plural.
In the example, the circumfix гама is attached to the root мэлгар to express comitative.
In Hausa it is ungrammatical to do the same with coordinating conjunctions. For example, if the companions were "dog and cat", it would be ungrammatical to move either "dog" or "cat" to the front of the sentence for emphasis, while it is grammatical to do so when there is a comitative marker rather than a conjunction.
Examples
Indo-European languages
Latvian
In Latvian, both instrumental and comitative are expressed with the preposition ar However, it is used only when the companion is in accusative and singular or when it is in dative and plural. Otherwise the co-ordinating conjunction un is used.
Uralic languages
Estonian
In Estonian, the comitative (kaasaütlev) marker is the suffix -ga.
Finnish
In Finnish, the comitative case (komitatiivi) consists of the suffix -ne with adjectives and -ne- + a mandatory possessive suffix with the main noun. There is no singular-plural distinction; only the plural of the comitative exists and is used in both singular and plural senses, and thus it always appears as -ine-. For instance, "with their big ships" is
Sami languages
As there are many Sami languages there are variations between them. In the largest Sami language, Northern Sami, the comitative case means either communion, fellowship, connection - or instrument, tool. It can be used either as an object or as an adverbial.
Hungarian
In Hungarian, comitative case is marked by the suffix -stul/-stül, as shown in the example below.
Chukchi
Chukchi language uses a circumfix to express comitative case.
Drehu
In Drehu language, there are two prepositions which can be used to mark comitative. Which of the prepositions is used is determined by the classes of the accompanier and companion.
Hausa
The comitative marker in Hausa language is the preposition dà. In Hausa, a prepositional phrase marked for comitative can be moved to the front of the sentence for emphasis, as shown in the examples below.
Further reading
|
|
