On the Case System of Berber

The morphological shape of a noun in Berber is determined by the syntactic context in which it appears. The alternation is between what has come to be known as the Construct State and the Free State. Since the alternation is syntactically determined, it has been suggested that the State phenomenon may be a form of case (cf. Prasse 1974; Chaker 1983; Bader and Kenstowicz 1984; Ouhalla 1988). But the link between Case and State has not been established in a conclusive manner. One reason why the nature of the Construct State has remained a puzzling aspect of Berber is that the contexts in which the Construct State forms appear and those where the Free State forms appear do not seem to constitute natural classes. For instance, most prepositions take a Construct State complement, but some take Free State forms. The subject of a verb in the VSO order is in the Construct but a left dislocated subject is not. The object of a verb is in the Free State, but when it is clitic doubled it is in the Construct State.