Kasusissa

Kasusissa is a theoretical construct in linguistics and discourse analysis that describes a proposed link between grammatical case marking and information structure within clauses. The central claim is that in some languages the form of a noun phrase’s case can reflect its discourse status—such as given versus new information, topic versus focus—and thus contribute to interpretation in context beyond what word order or intonation alone convey. Kasusissa is discussed mainly in typological and theoretical circles and is used as a heuristic for examining how morphology might encode discourse functions.

Etymology and origin: The term combines the Indonesian word kasus, meaning case, with a Latin-inspired suffix -issa, intended to signify a principled rule or pattern. It emerged in scholarly discussions in the 2010s as researchers explored whether case systems can participate in information-structuring mechanisms, rather than serving solely grammatical roles like subject or object marking.

Theoretical framework: Kasusissa does not posit a single universal pattern. Instead, it outlines potential cross-linguistic alignments where different case forms correlate with discourse status, such as marking topics with a specific case or signaling new information through a distinct case on agents or patients. The concept distinguishes itself from, yet interacts with, topic marking, focus marking, definiteness, and animacy. Critics note that evidence is uneven across languages and that multiple factors—syntax, semantics, pragmatics—may influence any observed associations.

Applications and status: In education, kasusissa serves as a useful illustration of how morphology could interact with information structure. In linguistic typology and computational linguistics, it motivates feature-encoding approaches that consider case as more than a grammatical relation. Overall, kasusissa remains a debated, exploratory concept rather than an established universal principle.

See also: information structure, case marking, topic, focus, discourse analysis.