Seeing so many similarities in grammatical structure between Sanskrit and Latin, why is it that Latin does not have an instrumental case as Sanskrit does?
-
2Sanskrit also has a dual (in addition to singular and plural) and a locative that Latin doesn't (really) have, and Greek doesn't even have an ablative. I would guess that it's just another example of syntaxes simplifying, and the meanings of more specialized cases got lumped together with other cases.– Mar JohnsonFeb 24, 2016 at 1:28
-
1Side note: if you Google "PIE cases", you might not get what you expect.– Mar JohnsonFeb 24, 2016 at 1:29
-
3@MarJohnson: Bookcases with lots of volumes by Pokorny, I presume?– Cerberus ♦Feb 24, 2016 at 1:35
-
1@Cerberus Wouldn't that be fun?– Mar JohnsonFeb 24, 2016 at 1:37
-
@MarJohnson isn't there a locative species of the dative in classical latin which periodically declines slightly differently (e.g. in the word locus)?– virmaiorFeb 24, 2016 at 6:09
|
Show 1 more comment
1 Answer
I'm not sure there is more of a "why" to it than the fact that, in Latin, the ablative mostly absorbed the Proto-Indo-European instrumental's functions as the latter disappeared, just as the Greek dative did (which also happened to absorb some functions of the Proto-Indo-European ablative as it disappeared in Greek). Some other functions of the ablative were absorbed by the genitive in Greek. The Latin subjunctive also absorbed functions of the Proto-Indo-European optative, etc.
