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I had an idea to spice up the core argument cases in one of my languages: what if there were separate object cases for an object that undergoes a change of state, vs. an object that does not?

By this I mean that verbs would presumably split into two semantically-determined classes based on whether the object (e.g. "car") is materially different after the action takes place (e.g. "I painted the car red", "I hit the car with a sledgehammer", "I got the car dirty", etc.) or not (e.g. "I looked at the car", "I own the car", "I dislike the car"). The case of the object then depends on which of these two classes the verb falls in. Additionally, perhaps if a normally transformative action is counterfactual - either negative, or hypothetical, or simply irresultative - its object could be atypically marked with the untransformed case instead.

It reminds me of split S, except for applying to O instead of S. "Transformed" vs. "untransformed" seems to me like the intuitive name for this distinction. I'm aware it sounds vaguely like the Finnish partitive but IINM it is different in that, in Finnish, the partitive marks irresultative actions, i.e. actions that are not completed or are unsuccessful, but my "untransformed" case would be used even if the action is successfully completed, but just doesn't have a material effect.

I assume, because ANADEW, some natural language probably does this. I don't know what language that is though. Does anyone know what languages I should look up for inspiration?

Further - how would you even evolve this? Generalization of resultative or irresultative markers? Those normally evolve on verbs, how would they make their way onto nouns?

Another idea I had for the same language is that it could be secundative, not distinguishing direct and indirect objects at all. So the simplest explanation for where the transformed vs. untransformed cases could come from would be that they're a repurposed accusative (or absolutive) and dative case. But would that be naturalistic, does it make sense for a direct vs. indirect distinction to turn into a transformed vs. untransformed distinction? Or should I keep these two "screwing around with objects" ideas separate in two different languages?

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  • Not exactly that, but some food for thought (Phillipine languages do it mostly on the verb): Symmetrical voice Commented Aug 2, 2024 at 10:25

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These are called the theme and patient thematic relations.

Theme: undergoes the action but does not change its state

Patient: undergoes the action and changes its state

It's very plausible that a language would use different cases for these two roles, but I don't actually know any natural languages that do so. This question was actually asked on Linguistics.SE, but it has no answers, just one comment suggesting Finnish.

Note that "direct" vs "indirect" objects are mostly just terms of traditional English schooling. I never actually learned them either in school nor in my linguistics degree, and I can never remember which is which. I'd recommend avoiding them, and if you're making your own language you could use clearer terms, even just the actual thematic roles or the cases.

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