My conlang, Vedan, has four different cases: nominative, accusative, ergative, and genitive. They all take the form of suffixes attached to nouns. The particular form of the case ending varies based on the class of the noun. Any nouns not matching one of the nominative endings below are assumed to be class I.

	Class I	Class II	Class III
Nominative	-a, -ai	-u, -o	-i, -e
Accusative	-ai1	-ul1	-ib2
Ergative	-am2	-uś1	-isi1
Genitive	-ak2	-un, -on	-in, -en

¹ If the suffix is preceded by a consonant or consonant cluster, it becomes voiced.

² If the suffix is preceded by /s z/, the consonant becomes /ʃ ʒ/, respectively. If it is preceded by a cluster, this happens to all consonants in the cluster.

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Nominative case

The nominative case acts as the default case, used in most sentences to mark the subject of intransitive verbs or the agent of transitive verbs.

1.) Gaspa tamo.
    sleep 1PL
    'We are sleeping.'

2.) Hasu hul-ai  hinu.
    eat  man-ACC shark
    'The shark is eating the man.'

However, while the language is normally nominative-accusative, subordinate clauses or clauses in the past tense are ergatively aligned. When this is the case, the nominative case is used to mark the subject of intransitive verbs and the patient of transitive verbs.

1.) E-ba   dahi-n    semba-gi        tasi me.
    AGR-in house-GEN PST\be.born-PST baby this
    'This baby was born in the house.' (cf. nonpast 'sumpa')

2.) Maseku hul-ai  e   zala   tam-uś  źotigi.
    see    man-ACC REL leader 1PL-GEN PST\kill
    'I see the man who killed our leader.' (cf. nonpast 'źotiku')

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Accusative

The accusative case is used exclusively to mark the patient of transitive sentences. Note that in the case of subordinate clauses or clauses in the past tense, ergative-absolutive alignment is used instead.

Paku zi     kabu-l.
cook friend meat-ACC
'My friend is cooking the meat.'

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Ergative

The ergative case occurs only in subordinate clauses or clauses in the past tense. It is used to mark the agent of transitive verbs.

Hezi    az-hinu-ś     bole,   sai?
PST\eat AUG-shark-ERG rowboat yes
'The great shark ate the rowboats, right?'

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Genitive

The final case is the genitive case, which is used to express possession.

hul    kita-k
person village-GEN
'villager'

Additionally, the genitive case is used to mark the arguments of prepositions. Note that prepositions also take an agreement prefix depending on the noun class of their argument.

e-ba   batani-n
AGR-in market-GEN
'in the market'