Editing Comitative case (section)

==Core meaning==
The comitative case encodes a relationship of "accompaniment" between two participants in an event, called the "accompanier" and the "companion". In addition, there is a "relator" (which can be of multiple lexical categories, but is most commonly an [[affix]] or [[adposition]]).<ref name=Stolz2006 />{{rp|17–18}} Use of the comitative case gives prominence to the accompanier.<ref name=Stolz2009>{{cite book|last1=Stolz|last2=Stroh|last3=Urdze|first1=Thomas|first2=Cornelia|first3=Aina|title=The Oxford Handbook of Case|year=2009|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|chapter=Varieties of Comitative|editor-first1=Andrej |editor-last1=Malchukov |editor-first2=Andrew |editor-last2=Spencer|pages=593–600}}</ref>{{rp|602}} This [[Italian language|Italian]] sentence is an example:

:<nowiki>[</nowiki>''il professore''<nowiki>]</nowiki><sub>accompanier</sub> ''entra nell'aula'' <nowiki>[</nowiki>''con''<nowiki>]</nowiki><sub>relator</sub> <nowiki>[</nowiki>''i suoi studenti''<nowiki>]</nowiki><sub>companion</sub>
:<nowiki>'the professor enters the lecture-hall (together) with his students'</nowiki>.<ref name=Stolz2009 />{{rp|602}}

In this case, {{lang|it|il professore}} is the accompanier, {{lang|it|i suoi studenti}} is the companion, and {{lang|it|con}} is the relator. As the accompanier, {{lang|it|il professore}} is the most prominent.

[[Animacy]] also plays a major role in most languages with a comitative case. One group of languages requires both the accompanier  and the companion to be either human or animate. Another group requires both to be in the same category: both human or both animate. A third group requires an animate accompanier and an inanimate companion. Other languages have no restrictions based on animacy.<ref name=Stolz2009 />{{rp|603–604}}