Aversive case

The aversive or evitative case (abbreviated EVIT) is a grammatical case found in Australian Aboriginal languages that indicates that the marked noun is avoided or feared.

Usage

For example, in Walmajarri:

Yapa-warnti	pa-lu	tjurtu-karrarla	laparnkanja	natji-karti.
child-ABS.PL	IND-they	dust-AVERSIVE	ran away	cave-ALL
The children ran into the cave because of the dust storm.

The suffix -karrarla indicates that the action (running away) was carried out in order to avoid the dust storm, tjurtu-.

The aversive may also be used to mark the object of verbs of fearing. For example, in Djabugay:

Djama-lan	ŋawu	yarrnga-nj.
snake-AVERSIVE	I	be afraid-PAST
I was afraid of the snake.

The aversive may be used on a nominalized verb, to produce an equivalent of English "lest". For example, "lest they be forgotten" could be encoded as "to avoid forgetting them".

Languages

Few languages have a distinct aversive case. Usually, a single case will be used both for the aversive and other functions.

Languages with a distinct aversive case include:

References

Dixon, R. M. W. (2002). Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-47378-0.

Grammatical cases

Cases

Morphosyntactic alignment	Absolutive Accusative Direct Ergative Intransitive Nominative Oblique Partitive Pegative

Location, time, direction	Ablative Addirective Adelative Adessive Allative Antessive Apudessive Approximative Delative Distantitive Distributive (–temporal) Egressive Elative Illative Inelative Inessive Initiative Intrative Lative Locative Medial Perlative Pertingent Postdirective Postelative Postessive Prolative Prosecutive Proximative Separative Subdirective Subelative Subessive Sublative Superdirective Superelative Superessive Superlative Temporal Terminative

Possession, companion, instrument	Abessive Associative Caritive Comitative Dative Genitive Instrumental (–comitative) Ornative Possessed Possessive Privative Sociative

State, manner	Adverbial Comparative Equative Essive (–formal, –modal) Exessive Formal Identical Instructive Modal Multiplicative Orientative Revertive Semblative Translative

Cause, purpose	Aversive Benefactive Causal (–final) Evitative Final

Other	Dubitive Postpositional Prepositional Vocative

Declensions

Czech Archaic Dutch English (Middle English, Old English) Finnish German (Old High German) Gothic Irish Latin Latvian Lithuanian Serbo-Croatian Slovak

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