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) is a
grammatical case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...
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 ...
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 ...
. In
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, 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 ...
this type of dative is called the ''dativus commodi''.
An example of a language with a benefactive case is
Basque, 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, 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 agglutinat ...
.
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, 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 ar ...
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:
: '
See also
*
Ditransitive verb
In grammar, a ditransitive (or bitransitive) verb is a transitive verb whose contextual use corresponds to a subject and two objects which refer to a theme and a recipient. According to certain linguistics considerations, these objects may be ...
References
Grammatical cases
Transitivity and valency
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