Concerning the supposed uselessness of the locative
for the noun "father":
>And how often do you need "in the father"?
The locative doesn't always mean "in". It may be used
for a wide variety of nuances. It could just as well
mean "at father" or "next to father" or "beside father".
These are more natural usages of this noun and they
would all use the same locative marker that you protest.
Don't forget as well that different verbs have different
requirements on what case to use for the object. Some
verbs require that the object be marked in the genitive.
Others in the accusative and still others in the
locative. For example, the case of *ei- "to go" which
could well have used the accusative as much as the
dative for the object. In Latin, the accusative is used
with /ire/ to convey the meaning of arriving at a
destination while a dative object is used to convey the
idea of moving towards a destination.
= gLeN
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