The benefactive case (

abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

, or sometimes when it is a

core argument In linguistics, an argument is an expression that helps complete the meaning of a predicate (grammar), predicate, the latter referring in this context to a main verb and its auxiliaries. In this regard, the ''Complement (linguistics), complement'' ...

) is a

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In vari ...

used where

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

would use "for", "for the benefit of", or "intended for", e.g. "She opened the door ''for Tom''" or "This book is ''for Bob''". The benefactive case expresses that the referent of the noun it marks receives the benefit of the situation expressed by the clause. This meaning is often incorporated in a

dative case In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a ...

. In

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

this type of dative is called the ''dativus commodi''. An example of a language with a benefactive case is

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

, which has a benefactive case ending in ''-entzat''.

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language **So ...

is another example, and the benefactive case ending in Quechua is ''-paq''. Tangkhul-Naga (from the

Tibeto-Burman The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people spea ...

group of languages) has the benefactive case marker '. In

Aymara Aymara may refer to: Languages and people * Aymaran languages, the second most widespread Andean language ** Aymara language, the main language within that family ** Central Aymara, the other surviving branch of the Aymara(n) family, which today ...

, the benefactive case is marked with -''taki'', expressing that the referent of the inflected noun benefits from the situation expressed by the verb, or, when there is no verb, that the noun to which it attaches is a recipient, as in the word below: Benefactive meaning may also be marked on the verb, in a common type of

applicative voice The applicative voice (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical voice that promotes an oblique argument of a verb to the core object argument. It is generally considered a valency-increasing morpheme. The Applicative is often found in agglutinative ...

Autobenefactive

An autobenefactive case or voice marks a case where the agents and the benefactor are one and the same. In Rhinelandic colloquial German, one finds expressions like: : ' (I smoke a cigarette for myself), where ' (for myself) is optional. In the

Colognian language Colognian or Kölsch (; natively ''Kölsch Platt'') is a small set of very closely related dialects, or variants, of the Ripuarian group of dialects of the Central German group. These dialects are spoken in the area covered by the Archdiocese ...

, there is a compulsory autobenefactive for example with the verb ' (to pray) when it is used

intransitive In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...

ly: : ' (He is praying). Similarly, in French one can say, in informal but fully correct language: : ' (Literally: ''I (to) myself smoke a cigarette. I (to) myself do a pause.) Formally, those forms coincide with reflexives in these languages. A similar construction is also found in colloquial English with a pronoun that is reflexive in function but not form: : '

References

Grammatical cases Transitivity and valency {{Ling-morph-stub

Autobenefactive

See also

References