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Instrumental case
Instrumental case (abbreviated as INS) is the grammatical case that marks tools and means of an action. In Nûrlâm it is marked with postposition “-irzi” for declension class I and “-rzi” for declension class II, which can be translated into English as “by”, “by means of”, “with use of”, “using”, “through (use of)”, “via”, etc. Instrumental case changes the role of nouns and pronouns into adverbial. Typical applications of instrumental case in Nûrlâm include:
- to indicate instrument of an action (“I cut the tree with an axe”, “send by (messenger) raven”));
- to indicate the agent of passive action expressed by passive participle (“The tree was cut by me”). This function was borrowed from archaic Ergative case with similar ending “-irz”.
- locative function denoting motion through the object or some media (“they came by the sea”), may be further clarified by adding postposition “tuk” (through);
- make distributive numerals (“one by one”, “stand by fours”);
- used together with prepositions “ik” or “zi” to denote ending of an action before/by some time, (“They all will be killed by the dawn”). Please note, that preposition “ugil” with similar meaning requires noun in accusative case
Instrumental case is not used when translating preposition “by” from English in following cases:
- locative function with stationary meaning “near(by)” (“house by the sea”) - replace with noun in Allative case together with postposition “mush”;
Instrumental vs. Comitative case
Comitative case may be confused with Instrumental case, as both of them may be translated with English preposition “with”. The difference is that either word “together” or presence of companion or emotion is implied in Comitative case, while Instrumental case means “with use of”, “using”. Compare: “He speaks with fear in his voice” = “Tagashn ufursha mogtabishi” (COM) vs. “He speaks with flattery” = “Tagashn glizgirzi” (INS), “He talks with elves” = “Tashugb golugsha” (COM) vs. “He talks with his mouth” = “Tashugb pugtabirzi” (INS), “Kill the orc with knife”1) = “Dog urukum kirmsha” (COM) vs. “Kill the orc with (use of) knife”2) = “Dog urukum kirmirzi” (INS).
The verb “gûk-” (to fill) requires indirect object (if present) to be in Instrumental case: “Fill the barrels with fish” = “Gûk kralt skabirzi”. But “kralt skabsha” means that fish is already in the barrels.
