Dative Case

Most linguists are familiar with the four core cases of Kalavan Baoran: ergative, absolutive, genitive, and prepositional. However, what is often overlooked is the development of an unmarked dative case. While traditionally associated with just being a form of the absolutive case used for indirect objects, more Kalavan Baoran speakers are starting to treat the two cases as separate grammatical concepts. 

The absolutive case in Kalavan Baoran is typically marked with the suffix “-va” in animate nouns and by eliding the initial consonant of all object nouns (although this phenomenon is not universal across all speakers).

1. Kemp’piva hok’ka. “The robin jumped.” 

2. Taksesa ‘avenkiva ma’o. “Crocodiles attack cows.”

3. *A ‘okus’sina ‘ar’ranava ruvan’ka. “I gave back the pen to the teacher.”

The case is used for the subjects of intransitive sentences as in 1), the objects of transitive verbs as in 2), and until recently also indirect objects as in 3). This latter usage came out of a need to fill the void left by the loss of the dative case in Old Baoran. However, more Kalavan Baoran speakers have started to drop va from indirect objects as well as retaining the initial consonant instead, leading to a construction like:

1. A ‘okus’sina kar’rana-∅ ruvan’ka. “I gave back the pen to the teacher.”

Instead of:

1. *A ‘okus’sina ‘ar’ranava ruvan’ka. “I gave back the pen to the teacher.”

Table 2: Updated noun case table for Kalavan Baoran