Singulargenitivedative

Singulargenitivedative is a proposed linguistic term for a single morphological marker that encodes three grammatical features at once: singular number, genitive possession, and dative recipient. The term is a portmanteau of singular, genitive, and dative. It is primarily discussed in theoretical linguistics and conlang design rather than as a standard category in natural languages.

Typically realized as a suffix or clitic attached to the head noun, the singulargenitivedative may appear as an agglutinative morpheme. Some analyses treat it as a fused complex case, while others describe it as a multi-function clitic carrying sequence features. The marker may co-occur with other noun flags such as definiteness or numerals, and its position relative to the noun varies by language.

Semantically, the marker signals that the noun is singular and participates in both possessive and recipient roles in the clause. It is especially discussed in the context of ditransitive constructions, where the same noun simultaneously encodes the possessor relationship and the recipient role, potentially reducing the need for separate genitive and dative markers.

Attestation: There are no known natural languages with a widely attested singulargenitivedative as a standard category. It is mainly used in linguistic experiments, typology discussions, and conlang grammars as a thought experiment about morphological fusion and case stacking.

Example (fictional language X): The noun for "book" is libro. The singulargenitivedative suffix is -oro, yielding libro-oro. The sentence "Ari libro-oro da Kito" translates as "Ari gave the book to Kito." Here libro-oro marks the book as singular and simultaneously denotes its possession by a singular possessor and its role as the recipient’s object in the transfer.