Early Hick Spatial Cases

Early Hick’s spatial case system interacts closely with verbal semantics, marking not only physical direction but also abstract state changes and causation.

See also: Early Hick morphology.

Basic Spatial Cases

• -las (ILL): “inward, into”
• -imris (ELL): “outward, from”
• -itar (SUPE, motion-context SALL): “on, upon, above”; “onto, up onto” in motion contexts
• -asam (SUBL): “downward, onto a lower surface”
• -esp (SUBE): “under, below”

Illative: -las

The illative -las marks inward motion, entry, or movement into a bounded place or state. With concrete nouns, it usually answers “into where?”. With property concepts, it can mark a change into a resulting state.

materok-es rismater-las
handler-ABS reed.boat-ILL
"The handler enters the reed boat"

kamar kel-es kakel-las
red sky-ABS blue-ILL
"red sky turns blue"

Ellative: -imris

The ellative -imris marks outward motion, emergence, source, or motion from a place or state. It is also extended into source-like abstract functions, including causal and derivational uses. In standard Early Hick, -imris is the main productive ellative marker.

Regional note: Some inland dialects preserve -iter in similar ellative-like uses, especially in fossilized or formal terms. For example, venuiter “to give birth” corresponds to standard vinuimris, but survives in formal expressions such as 'ilitar venuiteres “blessings upon your birth”.

Superessive: -itar

The superessive -itar marks a relation of being on, upon, atop, or supported by a surface or higher reference point. It is primarily locative. With motion clauses, the same form can be read as a surface goal, “onto” or “up onto”, because the motion comes from the clause context. This reference uses SUPE for the static/support reading and SALL for the directional surface-goal reading. This is a glossing distinction, not a separate case suffix.

Lexicalized forms may preserve edge-case readings involving an overhead source or something coming from above. For example, aitar “rain” is understood as ai-itar, “water above” or “water coming upon one from above”, rather than as a productive directional meaning “upward”.

Subessive: -esp

The subessive -esp marks position under, below, or beneath a reference point. It is the static counterpart to lower-position meanings and is used when the important relation is being below something, not necessarily moving downward.

The independent form wesp “cellar, basement, lower enclosed space” preserves a lexical relic of the same development. In ordinary case marking, the initial w was lost after the form grammaticalized, especially when attached to consonant-final stems.

Descending / Lowering Case: -asam

The -asam case marks downward motion, lowering, or movement toward a lower surface or lower state. It contrasts with -esp, which marks being under or below without necessarily implying motion.

Directional Usage

materok-es rismater-las
handler-ABS reed.boat-ILL
"The handler enters the reed boat"

materok-es rismater-imris
handler-ABS reed.boat-ELL
"The handler exits the reed boat"

materok-es rismater-itar
handler-ABS reed.boat-SALL
"The handler climbs onto the reed boat"

materok-es rismater-asam
handler-ABS reed.boat-SUBL
"The handler climbs down onto the reed boat"

In these zero-verb motion clauses, the moving participant is the only core argument and takes absolutive case. Caused-motion clauses keep the normal ergative-absolutive contrast:

Change of State

Spatial cases extend to mark state changes. See Adjectival Morphology for full details.

Syntactic Properties

• Marks the goal, source, path, position, or resulting state
• Takes no verbalizer in productive spatial-case phrases
• Uses absolutive on the sole mover in intransitive motion contexts
• Can be fronted for emphasis
• Implies motion/change without overt verb
• Allows ergative causers in caused-motion clauses
• Interacts with causative constructions