A grammatical case is a category of
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
s and noun modifiers (
determiners,
adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
s,
participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
s, and
numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential
grammatical function
In linguistics, grammatical relations (also called grammatical functions, grammatical roles, or syntactic functions) are functional relationships between constituents in a clause. The standard examples of grammatical functions from traditional gra ...
s for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nominal groups consisting of a noun and its modifiers belong to one of a few such categories. For instance, in
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 ...
, one says ''I see them'' and ''they see me'': the
nominative pronouns ''I/they'' represent the perceiver and the
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
pronouns ''me/them'' represent the phenomenon perceived. Here,
nominative and
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
are cases, that is, categories of pronouns corresponding to the functions they have in representation.
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 ...
has largely lost its inflected case system but personal pronouns still have three cases, which are simplified forms of the
nominative,
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
and
genitive cases. They are used with
personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
s:
subjective case (I, you, he, she, it, we, they, who, whoever),
objective case
In grammar, an oblique (abbreviated ; from la, casus obliquus) or objective case ( abbr. ) is a nominal case other than the nominative case, and sometimes, the vocative.
A noun or pronoun in the oblique case can generally appear in any role ex ...
(me, you, him, her, it, us, them, whom, whomever) and
possessive case
A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict own ...
(my, mine; your, yours; his; her, hers; its; our, ours; their, theirs; whose; whosever). Forms such as ''I'', ''he'' and ''we'' are used for the
subject ("I kicked the ball"), and forms such as ''me'', ''him'' and ''us'' are used for the
object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an ...
("John kicked me").
As a language evolves, cases can merge (for instance, in
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
, the
locative case merged with the
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 ...
), a phenomenon officially called
syncretism.
Languages such as
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 ...
,
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nativ ...
,
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
and
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
have extensive case systems, with nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and determiners all inflecting (usually by means of different
suffixes) to indicate their case. The number of cases differs between languages:
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
has two; modern English has three but for pronouns only;
Torlakian dialects
Torlakian, or Torlak is a group of South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia, Kosovo, northeastern North Macedonia, and northwestern Bulgaria. Torlakian, together with Bulgarian and Macedonian, falls into the Balkan Slavic linguistic ar ...
,
Classical and
Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of standardized, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; occasionally, it also ref ...
have three;
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
,
Icelandic,
Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
, and
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
have four;
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
and
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
have five;
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
,
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 ...
,
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
,
Slovak,
Slovenian
Slovene or Slovenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Slovenia, a country in Central Europe
* Slovene language, a South Slavic language mainly spoken in Slovenia
* Slovenes
The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( sl, Sloven ...
, and
Turkish each have at least six;
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
,
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
,
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
,
Kajkavian
Kajkavian (Kajkavian noun: ''kajkavščina''; Shtokavian adjective: ''kajkavski'' , noun: ''kajkavica'' or ''kajkavština'' ) is a South Slavic regiolect or language spoken primarily by Croats in much of Central Croatia, Gorski Kotar and no ...
,
Latvian,
Lithuanian,
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
,
Serbian,
Croatian and
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
have seven;
Mongolian,
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
,
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nativ ...
, and
Greenlandic have eight;
Assamese has 10;
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 ...
has 13;
Estonian has 14;
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
has 15;
Hungarian has 18 and
Tsez has 64 cases.
Commonly encountered cases include nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. A role that one of those languages marks by case is often marked in English with a
preposition. For example, the English prepositional phrase ''with (his) foot'' (as in "John kicked the ball with his foot") might be rendered in Russian using a single noun in the
instrumental case, or in Ancient Greek as (, meaning "the foot") with both words (the definite article, and the noun () "foot") changing to dative form.
More formally, case has been defined as "a system of marking dependent nouns for the type of relationship they bear to their
heads".
[Blake, Barry J. ''Case''. ]Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer.
Cambridge University Pre ...
: 2001. Cases should be distinguished from
thematic roles
Thematic role is a linguistic notion, which may refer to:
* Theta role (in syntax or at the syntax-semantics interface), the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure—the number and type of noun phrases—required syntactically ...
such as ''
agent
Agent may refer to:
Espionage, investigation, and law
*, spies or intelligence officers
* Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another
** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
'' and ''
patient
A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other hea ...
''. They are often closely related, and in languages such as Latin, several thematic roles are realised by a somewhat fixed case for deponent verbs, but cases are a
syntagmatic/phrasal category, and thematic roles are the function of a syntagma/phrase in a larger structure. Languages having cases often exhibit
free word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
, as thematic roles are not required to be marked by position in the sentence.
History
It is widely accepted that the Ancient Greeks had a certain idea of the forms of a name in their own language. A fragment of
Anacreon
Anacreon (; grc-gre, Ἀνακρέων ὁ Τήϊος; BC) was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ...
seems to prove this. Nevertheless, it cannot be inferred that the
Ancient Greeks
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
really knew what grammatical cases were. Grammatical cases were first recognized by the
Stoics and from some philosophers of the
Peripatetic school
The Peripatetic school was a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece. Its teachings derived from its founder, Aristotle (384–322 BC), and ''peripatetic'' is an adjective ascribed to his followers.
The school dates from around 335 BC when Aristo ...
.
The advancements of those philosophers were later employed by the philologists of the
Alexandrian school.
[
]
Etymology
The English word ''case'' used in this sense comes from the Latin , which is derived from the verb , "to fall", from the Proto-Indo-European root
The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) are basic parts of words that carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots usually have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run". Roots never occurred alone in the lan ...
'' ''. The Latin word is a calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language w ...
of the Greek , , lit. "falling, fall". The sense is that all other cases are considered to have "fallen" away from the nominative. This imagery is also reflected in the word ''declension
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ...
'', from Latin , "to lean", from the PIE root '' ''.
The equivalent to "case" in several other European languages also derives from ''casus'', including in French, in Italian, in Spanish, in Portuguese and in German. The Russian word (''padyézh'') is a calque from Greek and similarly contains a root meaning "fall", and the German and Czech simply mean "fall", and are used for both the concept of grammatical case and to refer to physical falls. The Finnish equivalent is , whose main meaning is "position" or "place".
Indo-European languages
Although not very prominent in modern English, cases featured much more saliently in Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
and other ancient Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, such as 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 ...
, Old Persian, Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
, and Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
. Historically, the Indo-European languages had eight morphological cases, though modern languages typically have fewer, using prepositions and word order to convey information that had previously been conveyed using distinct noun forms. Among modern languages, cases still feature prominently in most of the Balto-Slavic languages
The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branc ...
(except Macedonian and Bulgarian), with most having six to eight cases, as well as Icelandic, German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
and Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
, which have four. In German, cases are mostly marked on articles and adjectives, and less so on nouns. In Icelandic, articles, adjectives, personal names and nouns are all marked for case, making it, among other things, the living Germanic language
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...
that could be said to most closely resemble Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bran ...
.
The eight historical Indo-European cases are as follows, with examples either of the English case or of the English syntactic alternative to case:
All of the above are just rough descriptions; the precise distinctions vary significantly from language to language, and as such they are often more complex. Case is based fundamentally on changes to the noun to indicate the noun's role in the sentence – one of the defining features of so-called fusional languages
Fusional languages or inflected languages are a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by their tendency to use a single inflectional morpheme to denote multiple grammatical, syntactic, or semantic features.
For e ...
. Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
was a fusional language, but Modern English does not work this way.
Modern English
Modern 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 ...
has largely abandoned the inflectional case system of Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
in favor of analytic constructions. The personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
s of Modern English retain morphological case more strongly than any other word class (a remnant of the more extensive case system of Old English). For other pronouns, and all nouns, adjectives, and articles, grammatical function is indicated only by word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
, by prepositions, and by the "Saxon genitive
In English, possessive words or phrases exist for nouns and most pronouns, as well as some noun phrases. These can play the roles of determiners (also called possessive adjectives when corresponding to a pronoun) or of nouns.
For nouns, noun ph ...
" (''-'s'').
Taken as a whole, English personal pronouns are typically said to have three morphological cases:
* The ''nominative case
In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
'' (''subjective pronouns
In linguistics, a subject pronoun is a personal pronoun that is used as the subject of a verb. Subject pronouns are usually in the nominative case for languages with a nominative–accusative alignment pattern. On the other hand, a language with ...
'' such as ''I'', ''he'', ''she'', ''we''), used for the subject of a finite verb
Traditionally, a finite verb (from la, fīnītus, past participle of to put an end to, bound, limit) is the form "to which number and person appertain", in other words, those inflected for number and person. Verbs were originally said to be ''fin ...
and sometimes for the complement
A complement is something that completes something else.
Complement may refer specifically to:
The arts
* Complement (music), an interval that, when added to another, spans an octave
** Aggregate complementation, the separation of pitch-clas ...
of a copula.
* The ''oblique case
In grammar, an oblique (abbreviated ; from la, casus obliquus) or objective case ( abbr. ) is a nominal case other than the nominative case, and sometimes, the vocative.
A noun or pronoun in the oblique case can generally appear in any role ex ...
'' (''object pronoun
In linguistics, an object pronoun is a personal pronoun that is used typically as a grammatical object: the direct or indirect object of a verb, or the object of a preposition. Object pronouns contrast with subject pronouns. Object pronouns in En ...
s'' such as ''me'', ''him'', ''her'', ''us''), used for the direct or indirect object
Object may refer to:
General meanings
* Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept
** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place
** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter
* Goal, an ...
of a verb, for the object of a preposition, for an absolute disjunct, and sometimes for the complement of a copula.
* The '' genitive case'' (''possessive pronouns
A possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict own ...
'' such as ''my/mine'', ''his'', ''her/hers'', ''our/ours''), used for a grammatical possessor. This is not always considered to be a case; see .
Most English personal pronouns have five forms: the nominative case form, the oblique case form, a distinct '' reflexive'' or ''intensive'' form (such as ''myself'', ''ourselves'') which is based upon the possessive determiner form but is coreferential to a preceding instance of nominative or oblique, and the possessive case forms, which include both a '' determiner'' form (such as ''my'', ''our'') and a predicatively-used ''independent'' form (such as ''mine'', ''ours'') which is distinct (with two exceptions: the third person singular masculine ''he'' and the third person singular neuter ''it'', which use the same form for both determiner and independent 'his car'', ''it is his''. The interrogative personal pronoun ''who'' exhibits the greatest diversity of forms within the modern English pronoun system, having definite nominative, oblique, and genitive forms (''who'', ''whom'', ''whose'') and equivalently-coordinating indefinite forms (''whoever'', ''whomever'', and ''whosever'').
Though English ''pronouns'' can have subject and object forms (he/him, she/her), ''nouns'' show only a singular/plural and a possessive/non-possessive distinction (e.g. ''chair'', ''chairs'', ''chair's'', ''chairs); there is no manifest difference in the form of ''chair'' between "The chair is here." (subject) and "I own the chair." (direct object), a distinction made instead by word order and context.
Hierarchy of cases
Cases can be ranked in the following hierarchy, where a language that does not have a given case will tend not to have any cases to the right of the missing case:
: nominative → accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
''or'' ergative → genitive → dative → locative ''or'' prepositional
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
→ ablative
In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. ...
''and/or'' instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...
→ ''others''.
This is, however, only a general tendency. Many forms of Central German, such as Colognian and Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; Luxembourgish: ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.
As a standard form of th ...
, have a dative case but lack a genitive. In Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
nouns, the nominative and accusative have fallen together, whereas the dative–locative has remained separate in some paradigms; Irish also has genitive and vocative cases. In many modern Indo-Aryan languages, the accusative, genitive, and dative have merged to an oblique case, but many of these languages still retain vocative, locative, and ablative cases. Old English had an instrumental case, but neither a locative nor a prepositional case.
Case order
The traditional case order (nom-gen-dat-acc) was expressed for the first time in ''The Art of Grammar
''The Art of Grammar'' ( el, Τέχνη Γραμματική - or romanized, Téchnē Grammatikḗ) is a treatise on Greek language, Greek grammar, attributed to Dionysius Thrax, who wrote in the 2nd century BC.
Contents
It is the first work on ...
'' in the 2nd century BC:
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 ...
grammars, such as ''Ars grammatica
An ''ars grammatica'' ( en, italic=yes, art of grammar) is a generic or proper title for surveys of Latin grammar. The first ''ars grammatica'' seems to have been composed by Remmius Palaemon (first century CE), but is now lost. The most famous '' ...
'', followed the Greek tradition, but added the ablative case of Latin. Later other European languages also followed that Graeco-Roman tradition.
However, for some languages, such as Latin, due to case syncretism the order may be changed for convenience, where the accusative or the vocative cases are placed after the nominative and before the genitive. For example:
For similar reasons, the customary order of the four cases in Icelandic is nominative–accusative–dative–genitive, as illustrated below:
Case concord systems
In the most common case concord system, only the head-word (the noun) in a phrase is marked for case. This system appears in many Papuan languages
The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non- Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogr ...
as well as in Turkic, Mongolian, 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 ...
, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, and other languages. In 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 ...
and various Amazonian and Australian languages
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
, only the phrase-final word (not necessarily the noun) is marked for case. In many Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, Finnic, and Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...
, case is marked on the noun, the determiner, and usually the adjective. Other systems are less common. In some languages, there is double-marking of a word as both genitive (to indicate semantic role) and another case such as accusative (to establish concord with the head noun).
Declension paradigms
Declension is the process or result of altering nouns to the correct grammatical cases. Languages with rich nominal inflection (using grammatical cases for many purposes) typically have a number of identifiable declension classes, or groups of nouns with a similar pattern of case inflection or declension. Sanskrit has six declension classes, whereas Latin is traditionally considered to have five
5 is a number, numeral, and glyph.
5, five or number 5 may also refer to:
* AD 5, the fifth year of the AD era
* 5 BC, the fifth year before the AD era
Literature
* ''5'' (visual novel), a 2008 visual novel by Ram
* ''5'' (comics), an awa ...
, and Ancient Greek three
3 is a number, numeral, and glyph.
3, three, or III may also refer to:
* AD 3, the third year of the AD era
* 3 BC, the third year before the AD era
* March, the third month
Books
* '' Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 1901 ...
.[Frank Beetham, ''Learning Greek with Plato'', Bristol Phoenix Press, 2007.] For example, Slovak has fifteen noun declension classes, five for each gender (the number may vary depending on which paradigms are counted or omitted, this mainly concerns those that modify declension of foreign words; refer to article).
In Indo-European languages, declension patterns may depend on a variety of factors, such as gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
, number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
, phonological environment, and irregular historical factors. Pronouns sometimes have separate paradigms. In some languages, particularly Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
, a case may contain different groups of endings depending on whether the word is a noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
or an adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
. A single case may contain many different endings, some of which may even be derived from different roots. For example, in Polish, the genitive case has ''-a, -u, -ów, -i/-y, -e-'' for nouns, and ''-ego, -ej, -ich/-ych'' for adjectives. To a lesser extent, a noun's animacy or humanness may add another layer of complexity. For example, in Russian:
* Кот () (NOM, animate, zero ending) ловит мышей () ((The) cat catches mice)
* Столб () (NOM, inanimate, zero ending) держит крышу () ((The) pillar holds a/the roof)
vs.
* Пётр гладит кота () (ACC, animate, -a ending). (Peter strokes a/the cat)
and
* Пётр ломает столб () (ACC, inanimate, zero ending). (Peter breaks a/the pillar)
Examples
Australian Aboriginal Languages
Australian languages
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
represent a diversity of case paradigms in terms of their alignment (i.e. nominative-accusative vs. ergative-absolutive) and the morpho-syntactic properties of case inflection including where/how many times across a noun phrase the case morphology will appear. For typical r-expression In certain theories of syntax, an R-expression (short for ''referring expression'') is a category in the three-way classification of noun phrases in binding theory, the other two being Anaphora (linguistics), anaphors and pronominals. According to p ...
noun phrases, most Australian languages follow a basic ERG-ABS template with additional cases for peripheral arguments; however, many Australian languages, the function of case marking extends beyond the prototypical function of specifying the syntactic and semantic relation of an NP to a predicate.[Senge, Chikako. 2015. ''A Grammar of Wanyjirra, a language of Northern Australia''. The Australian National University Ph.D.] Dench and Evans (1988) use a five-part system for categorizing the functional roles of case marking in Australian languages. They are enumerated below as they appear in Senge (2015):
# Relational: a suffix which represents syntactic or semantic roles of a noun phrase in clauses.
# Adnominal: a suffix which relates a noun phrase to another within the one noun phrase.
# Referential: a suffix which attaches to a noun phrase in agreement with another noun phrase which represents one of the core arguments in the clause.
# Subordinating: a suffix which attaches to elements of a subordinate clause. Its functions are: (i) specifying temporal or logical (typically, causal and purposive) relationships between two clauses (Temporal-subordinator); (ii) indicating coreferential relationships between arguments in the two clauses (Concord-subordinator).
# Derivational: a suffix which attaches to a bare stem before other case suffixes and create a new lexical item.
To illustrate this paradigm in action, take the case-system of Wanyjirra for whose description Senge invokes this system. Each of the case markers functions in the prototypical relational sense, but many extend into these additional functions:
Wanyjirra is an example of a language in which case marking occurs on all sub-constituents of the NP; see the following example in which the demonstrative, head, and quantifier of the noun phrase all receive ergative marking:
However, this is by no means always the case or even the norm for Australian languages. For many, case-affixes are considered special-clitics (i.e. phrasal-affixes, see Anderson 2005) because they have a singular fixed position within the phrase. For Bardi, the case marker usually appears on the first phrasal constituent while the opposite is the case for Wangkatja (i.e. the case marker is attracted to the rightmost edge of the phrase). See the following examples respectively:
Bardi
Wangkatja
Basque
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 ...
has the following cases, with examples given in the indefinite, definite singular, definite plural, and definite close plural of the word ''etxe'', "house", "home":
* absolutive
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
(''etxe, etxea, etxeak, etxeok'': "house, the / a house, (the / some) houses, these houses"),
* ergative (''etxek, etxeak, etxeek, etxeok''),
* dative (''etxeri, etxeari, etxeei, etxeoi''),
* genitive (''etxeren, etxearen, etxeen, etxeon''),
* destinative (or benefactive: ''etxerentzat, etxearentzat, etxeentzat, etxeontzat''),
* motivative (or causal: ''etxerengatik, etxearengatik, etxeengatik, etxeongatik''),
* sociative (''etxerekin, etxearekin, etxeekin, etxeokin''),
* instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...
(''etxez, etxeaz, etxeez, etxeoz''),
* locative or inesive (''etxetan, etxean, etxeetan, etxeotan''),
* ablative
In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. ...
(''etxetatik, etxetik, exteetatik, etxeotatik''),
* adlative (''etxetara, etxera, etxeetara, etxeotara''),
* directional adlative (''etxetarantz, etxerantz, etxeetarantz, etxeotarantz''),
* terminative adlative (''etxetaraino, etxeraino, etxeetaraino, etxeotaraino''),
* locative genitive (''etxetako, etxeko, etxeetako, etxeotako''),
* prolative (etxetzat), only in the indefinite grammatical number,
* partitive In linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that indicates partialness. Nominal partitives are syntactic constructions, such as "some of the children", and may be classified semantically as either set partitives or entity partitives ba ...
(etxerik), only in the indefinite grammatical number, and
* distributive (''Bost liburu ikasleko banatu dituzte'', "They have handed out five books to each student"), only in the indefinite grammatical number.
Some of them can be re-declined, even more than once, as if they were nouns (usually, from the genitive locative case), although they mainly work as noun modifiers before a noun clause:
* ''etxearena'' (that which is of the house), ''etxearenarekin'' (with the one which pertains to the house),
* ''neskarentzako'' (which is for the girl), ''neskarentzakoan'' (in the one which is for the girl),
* ''neskekiko'' (which is with the girls), ''neskekikoa'' (the one which is for the girls),
* ''arazoarengatiko'' (which is because of the problem), ''arazoarengatikoak'' (the ones which are due to the problems),
* ''zurezkoaz'' (by means of the wooden one),
* ''etxeetakoaz'' (about the one which is in the houses), ''etxeetakoari'' (to the one which is in the houses),
* ''etxetiko'' (which comes from the house), ''etxetikoa'' (the one which comes from the house), etxetikoari (to the one which comes from the house),
* ''etxeetarako'' (which goes to the houses), ''etxeetarakoa'' (the one which goes to the houses), ''etxeetarakoaz'' (about the one which goes to the houses),
* ''etxeranzko'' (which goes towards the house), ''etxeranzkoa'' (the one which goes to the house), ''etxeranzkoarena'' (the one which belongs to the one which goes to the house),
* ''etxerainoko'' (which goes up to the house), ''etxerainokoa'' (the one which goes up to the house), ''etxerainokoarekin'' (with the one which goes up to the houses)...
German
In German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
, grammatical case is largely preserved in the articles and adjectives, but nouns have lost many of their original endings. Below is an example of case inflection in German using the masculine definite article
An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...
and one of the German words for "sailor".
* ( nominative) "the sailor" s a subject(e.g. ''Der Seemann steht da'' – the sailor is standing there)
* ( genitive) "the sailor's / fthe sailor" (e.g. – the name of the sailor is Otto)
* ( dative) " o/forthe sailor" s an indirect object
S, or s, is the nineteenth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphab ...
(e.g. – I gave a present to the sailor)
* (accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
) "the sailor" s a direct object(e.g. – I saw the sailor)
An example with the feminine definite article
An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...
with the German word for "woman".
* ''die Frau'' ( nominative) "the woman" s a subject(e.g. ''Die Frau isst'' - the woman eats)
* ''der Frau'' ( genitive) "the woman's / fthe woman" (e.g. ''Die Katze der Frau ist weiß'' - the cat of the woman is white)
* ''der Frau'' ( dative) " o/forthe woman" s an indirect object
S, or s, is the nineteenth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphab ...
(e.g. ''Ich gab der Frau ein Geschenk'' - I gave a present to the woman)
* ''die Frau'' (accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
) "the woman" s a direct object(e.g. ''Ich sah die Frau'' - I saw the woman)
An example with the neuter definite article
An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...
with the German word for "book".
* ''das Buch ( nominative)'' "the book" s a subject(e.g. ''Das Buch ist gut -'' the book is good)
* ''des Buch(e)s'' ( genitive) "the book's/ fthe book" (e.g. ''Die Seiten des Buchs sind grün'' - the pages of the book are green)
* ''dem Buch(e)'' ( dative) " o/forthe book" s an indirect object
S, or s, is the nineteenth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphab ...
(e.g. ''Ich gab dem Buch einen Titel'' - I gave the book a title)
* ''das Buch'' (accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
) "the book" s a direct object(e.g. ''Ich sah das Buch'' - I saw the book)
Proper names for cities have two genitive nouns:
* ''der Hauptbahnhof Berlins'' (primary genitive) "the main train station of Berlin"
* ''der Berliner Hauptbahnhof'' (secondary genitive) "Berlin's main train station"
Hindi-Urdu
Hindi
Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
- ( Hindustani) has three noun cases, the ''nominative,'' ''oblique'', and ''vocative'' cases. The vocative case is now obsolete (however, still used in certain regions) and the oblique case doubles as the vocative case. The pronoun cases in Hindi-Urdu are the ''nominative'', ''ergative'', ''accusative, dative'', and two ''oblique'' cases. The case forms which do not exist for certain pronouns are constructed using primary postpositions (or other grammatical particles) and the oblique case (shown in parentheses in the table below).
The other cases are constructed adpositionally using the case-marking postpositions using the nouns and pronouns in their oblique cases. The oblique case is used exclusively with these 8 case-marking postpositions of Hindi-Urdu forming 10 grammatical cases, which are: ''ergative'' ने (ne), ''dative'' and ''accusative'' को (ko), ''instrumental'' and ''ablative'' से (se), ''genitive'' का (kā), ''inessive'' में (mẽ), ''adessive'' पे (pe), ''terminative'' तक (tak), ''semblative'' सा (sā).
Latin
An example of a 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 ...
case inflection is given below, using the singular forms of the Latin term for "cook", which belongs to Latin's second declension class.
* ( nominative) " hecook" s a subject(e.g. – the cook is standing there)
* ( genitive) " hecook's / f thecook" (e.g. – the cook's name is Claudius)
* ( dative) " o/for thecook" s an indirect object
S, or s, is the nineteenth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphab ...
(e.g. – I gave a present to the cook)
* (accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
) " hecook" s a direct object(e.g. – I saw the cook)
* (ablative
In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. ...
) " y/with/from/in thecook" n various uses not covered by the above
N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''.
History
...
(e.g. – I am taller than the cook: ablative of comparison)
* (vocative
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numer ...
) " outhe cook" ddressing the object(e.g. – I thank you, cook)
The Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
have largely abandoned or simplified the grammatical cases of Latin. Much like English, most Romance case markers survive only in pronouns.
Lithuanian
Typically in Lithuanian, only the inflection changes for the seven different grammatical cases:
* Nominative ('): – – "This is a dog."
* Genitive ('): – – "Tom took the dog's bone."
* Dative ('): – – "He gave the bone to another dog."
* Accusative ('): – – "He washed the dog."
* Instrumental ('): – – He scared the cats with (using) the dog.
* Locative ('): – – "We'll meet at the White Dog (Cafe)."
* Vocative ('): – – "He shouted: Hey, dog!"
Hungarian
Hungarian declension is relatively simple with regular suffixes attached to the vast majority of nouns. The following table lists all of the cases used in Hungarian.
Russian
An example of a Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
case inflection is given below (with explicit stress marks), using the singular forms of the Russian term for "sailor", which belongs to Russian's first declension class.
* ( nominative) " hesailor" s a subject(e.g. : The sailor is standing there)
* ( genitive) " hesailor's / f thesailor" (e.g. : The sailor's son is an artist)
* ( dative) " o/for thesailor" s an indirect object
S, or s, is the nineteenth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphab ...
(e.g. : (They/Someone) gave a present to the sailor)
* (accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
) " hesailor" s a direct object(e.g. : (I) see the sailor)
* (instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...
) " ith/by thesailor" s a direct object(e.g. : (I) have a friendship with the sailor)
* (prepositional
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
) " bout/on/in thesailor" s a direct object(e.g. : (I) think about the sailor)
Up to ten additional cases are identified by linguists, although today all of them are either incomplete (do not apply to all nouns or do not form full word paradigm with all combinations of gender and number) or degenerate (appear identical to one of the main six cases). The most recognized additional cases are locative (), partitive (), and two forms of vocative — old () and neo-vocative (). Sometimes, so called count-form (for some countable nouns after numerals) is considered to be a sub-case. See details.
Sanskrit
Grammatical case was analyzed extensively in Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
. The grammarian Pāṇini
, era = ;;6th–5th century BCE
, region = Indian philosophy
, main_interests = Grammar, linguistics
, notable_works = ' ( Classical Sanskrit)
, influenced=
, notable_ideas=Descriptive linguistics
(Devanaga ...
identified six semantic roles
A role (also rôle or social role) is a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given indiv ...
or ''kāraka'', which are related to the following eight Sanskrit cases in order:
For example, in the following sentence ''leaf'' is the agent (''kartā'', nominative case), ''tree'' is the source (''apādāna'', ablative case), and ''ground'' is the locus (''adhikaraṇa'', locative case). The declensions
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and a ...
are reflected in the morphemes ''-āt'', ''-am'', and ''-au'' respectively.
However, the cases may be deployed for other than the default thematic roles. A notable example is the passive construction. In the following sentence, ''Devadatta'' is the ''kartā'', but appears in the instrumental case, and ''rice'', the ''karman'', object, is in the nominative case (as subject of the verb). The declensions
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and a ...
are reflected in the morphemes ''-ena'' and ''-am''.
Tamil
The Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nativ ...
case system is analyzed in native and missionary grammars as consisting of a finite number of cases. The usual treatment of Tamil case (Arden 1942) is one in which there are seven cases: nominative (first case), accusative (second case), instrumental (third), dative (fourth), ablative (fifth), genitive (sixth), and locative (seventh). In traditional analyses, there is always a clear distinction made between post-positional morphemes and case endings. The vocative is sometimes given a place in the case system as an eighth case, but vocative forms do not participate in usual morphophonemic alternations and do not govern the use of any postpositions. Modern grammarians, however, argue that this eight-case classification is coarse and artificial and that Tamil usage is best understood if each suffix or combination of suffixes is seen as marking a separate case.
Turkish
Modern Turkish has six cases (In Turkish ''Adın durumları'').
The accusative can exist only in the noun(whether it is derived from a verb or not). For example, "Arkadaşlar bize gelmeyi düşünüyorlar." (Friends are thinking of coming to us).
The dative can exist only in the noun (whether it is derived from a verb or not). For example, "Bol bol kitap okumaya çalışıyorum." (I try to read a lot of books).
Evolution
As languages evolve, case systems change. In early Ancient Greek, for example, the genitive and ablative cases of given names became combined, giving five cases, rather than the six retained in Latin. In modern Hindi
Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
, the Sanskrit cases have been reduced to three: a direct case (for subjects and direct objects) and oblique case
In grammar, an oblique (abbreviated ; from la, casus obliquus) or objective case ( abbr. ) is a nominal case other than the nominative case, and sometimes, the vocative.
A noun or pronoun in the oblique case can generally appear in any role ex ...
, and a vocative case
In grammar, the vocative case ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and nume ...
. In English, apart from the pronouns discussed above, case has vanished altogether except for the possessive/non-possessive dichotomy in nouns.
The evolution of the treatment of case relationships can be circular. Postposition
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s can become unstressed and sound like they are an unstressed syllable of a neighboring word. A postposition can thus merge into the stem of a head noun, developing various forms depending on the phonological shape of the stem. Affixes can then be subject to various phonological processes such as assimilation, vowel centering to the schwa, phoneme loss, and fusion
Fusion, or synthesis, is the process of combining two or more distinct entities into a new whole.
Fusion may also refer to:
Science and technology Physics
*Nuclear fusion, multiple atomic nuclei combining to form one or more different atomic nucl ...
, and these processes can reduce or even eliminate the distinctions between cases. Languages can then compensate for the resulting loss of function by creating postpositions, thus coming full circle.
Recent experiments in agent-based modeling have shown how case systems can emerge and evolve in a population of language users. The experiments demonstrate that language users may introduce new case markers to reduce the cognitive effort required for semantic interpretation, hence facilitating communication through language. Case markers then become generalized through analogical reasoning and reuse.
Linguistic typology
Morphosyntactic alignment
Languages are categorized into several case systems, based on their ''morphosyntactic alignment''—how they group verb agents and patients
A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health care ...
into cases:
* '' Nominative–accusative'' (or simply ''accusative''): The argument (subject) of an intransitive verb is in the same case as the agent (subject) of a transitive verb; this case is then called the ''nominative case
In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
'', with the patient (direct object) of a transitive verb being in the '' accusative case''.
* '' Ergative–absolutive'' (or simply ''ergative''): The argument (subject) of an intransitive verb is in the same case as the patient (direct object) of a transitive verb; this case is then called the ''absolutive case
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative ...
'', with the agent (subject) of a transitive verb being in the ''ergative case
In grammar, the ergative case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that identifies the noun as the agent of a transitive verb in ergative–absolutive languages.
Characteristics
In such languages, the ergative case is typically marked (most ...
''.
* '' Ergative–accusative'' (or ''tripartite''): The argument (subject) of an intransitive verb is in its own case (the ''intransitive case
In grammar, the intransitive case ( abbreviated ), also denominated passive case or patient case, is a grammatical case used in some languages to mark the argument of an intransitive verb, but not used with transitive verbs. It is generally seen i ...
''), separate from that of the agent (subject) or patient (direct object) of a transitive verb (which is in the ergative case or accusative case, respectively).
* '' Active–stative'' (or simply ''active''): The argument (subject) of an intransitive verb can be in one of two cases; if the argument is an ''agent'', as in "He ate", then it is in the same case as the agent (subject) of a transitive verb (sometimes called the ''agentive case''), and if it is a ''patient'', as in "He tripped", then it is in the same case as the patient (direct object) of a transitive verb (sometimes called the ''patientive case'').
* ''Trigger
Trigger may refer to:
Notable animals and people
;Mononym
* Trigger (horse), owned by cowboy star Roy Rogers
;Nickname
* Trigger Alpert (1916–2013), American jazz bassist
* "Trigger Mike" Coppola (1900–1966), American gangster
;Surname
* Bru ...
'': One noun in a sentence is the topic or focus. This noun is in the trigger case
Trigger may refer to:
Notable animals and people
;Mononym
* Trigger (horse), owned by cowboy star Roy Rogers
;Nickname
* Trigger Alpert (1916–2013), American jazz bassist
* "Trigger Mike" Coppola (1900–1966), American gangster
;Surname
* Br ...
, and information elsewhere in the sentence (for example a verb
A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
affix in Tagalog) specifies the role of the trigger. The trigger may be identified as the agent, patient, etc. Other nouns may be inflected for case, but the inflections are overloaded; for example, in Tagalog, the subject and object of a verb are both expressed in the genitive case when they are not in the trigger case.
The following are systems that some languages use to mark case instead of, or in addition to, declension:
* Positional: Nouns are not inflected for case; the position of a noun in the sentence expresses its case.
* Adpositional: Nouns are accompanied by words that mark case.
Language families
*With a few exceptions, most languages in the Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric ( or ; ''Fenno-Ugric'') or Finno-Ugrian (''Fenno-Ugrian''), is a traditional grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except the Samoyedic languages. Its formerly commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is ba ...
family make extensive use of cases. Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
has 15 cases according to the traditional description (or up to 30 depending on the interpretation). However, only 12 are commonly used in speech (see Finnish noun cases
Finnish nominals, which include pronouns, adjectives, and numerals, are declined in a large number of grammatical cases, whose uses and meanings are detailed here. See also Finnish grammar.
Many meanings expressed by case markings in Finnish ...
and Finnish locative system
Finnish nominals, which include pronouns, adjectives, and numerals, are declined in a large number of grammatical cases, whose uses and meanings are detailed here. See also Finnish grammar.
Many meanings expressed by case markings in Finnis ...
). Estonian has 14 (see Estonian locative system
The Estonian language has six locative cases, descended from the locative cases of Proto-Finnic. They can be classified according to a three-way contrast of entering, residing in, and exiting a state, with two sets of cases: inner and outer.
F ...
) and Hungarian has 18, both with additional archaic cases used for some * Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages also exhibit complex case systems. Since the abovementioned languages, along with Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
and Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
, shared certain similarities, linguists proposed an Altaic
Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. Speakers of these languages are ...
family and reconstructed its case system; although the hypothesis had been largely discredited.
*The Tsez language
Tsez, also known as Dido (Tsez: () or ()), is a Northeast Caucasian language with about 15,000 speakers (15,354 in 2002) spoken by the Tsez, a Muslim people in the mountainous Tsunta District of southwestern Dagestan in Russia. The name i ...
, a Northeast Caucasian language, has 64 cases.
*The original version of John Quijada's constructed language
A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction ...
Ithkuil
Ithkuil (Ithkuil: ''Iţkuîl'') is an experimental constructed language created by John Quijada. It is designed to express more profound levels of human cognition briefly yet overtly and clearly, particularly about human categorization. It is a c ...
has 81 noun cases, and its descendant Ilaksh
Ithkuil (Ithkuil: ''Iţkuîl'') is an experimental language, experimental constructed language created by John Quijada. It is designed to express more profound levels of human cognition briefly yet overtly and clearly, particularly about human ca ...
and Ithkuil after the 2011 revision both have 96 noun cases.
The lemma form of words, which is the form chosen by convention as the canonical form of a word, is usually the most markedness, unmarked or basic case, which is typically the nominative, trigger, or absolutive case, whichever a language may have.
See also
* Agreement (linguistics)
* Case hierarchy
* Declension
* Differential object marking
* Inflection
* List of grammatical cases
* Phi features
* Thematic relation
* Verbal case
* Voice (grammar)
Notes
References
General references
*
* Ivan G. Iliev (2007
On the Nature of Grammatical Case ... (Case and Vocativeness)
External links
*[http://www.smg.surrey.ac.uk/features/morphosyntactic/case/ Grammatical Features Inventory] – Digital object identifier, DOI: 10.15126/SMG.18/1.04
*World Atlas of Language Structures Online
Chapter 28: Case Syncretism
Chapter 49: Number of Cases
Chapter 50: Asymmetrical Case Marking
Chapter 51: Position of Case Affixes
Chapter 98: Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases
Chapter 99: Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns
{{Authority control
Grammatical cases,