linguistic typology Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the co ...

, the case hierarchy denotes an order of

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...

s. If a language has a particular case, it also has all cases lower than this particular case. To put it another way, if a language lacks a particular case, it is also unlikely to develop cases higher than this particular case. This theory was developed by the Australian

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

Barry Blake Barry John Blake (born 1937) is an Australian linguist, specialising in the description of Australian Aboriginal languages. He is a professor emeritus at La Trobe University Melbourne. Career Blake was born in the northern Melbourne suburb of A ...

. His theory was inspired by the approach of Italian linguist

Guglielmo Cinque Guglielmo Cinque (born 1948 in La Spezia) is an Italian linguist and professor of linguistics at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice. He is one of the leading figures in modern minimalist syntax. Cinque studied literature and linguistics at the ...

. The hierarchy is as follows:Blake, B. J. (2001). ''Case'' (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. : NOM < ACC /

ERG The erg is a unit of energy equal to 10−7joules (100Nano-, nJ). It is not an SI unit, instead originating from the centimetre–gram–second system of units (CGS). Its name is derived from (), a Greek language, Greek word meaning 'work' or ' ...

< GEN < DAT < LOC < ABL / INS < ''others'' This is only a general tendency, however. Many forms of

Central German Central German or Middle German () is a group of High German languages spoken from the Rhineland in the west to the former eastern territories of Germany. Central German divides into two subgroups, West Central German and East Central Ger ...

such as Colognian or

Luxembourgish Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide. The language is standardized and officiall ...

have a dative case but lack a genitive. In Irish nouns, the nominative and accusative have fallen together, while the dative case has remained separate in some paradigms; Irish also has a genitive and vocative case. In Punjabi, the accusative, genitive, and dative have merged to an oblique case, but the language still retains

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 numeral ...

, locative, and ablative cases.

Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

had an instrumental case, but not a locative or prepositional. Blake argues that it is "doubtful that the hierarchy can be extended much further", but does suggest that the most common cases not listed in the hierarchy are the

comitative In grammar, the comitative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role. Other uses of "with", l ...

, purposive, allative, perlative and

comparative The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...

References

See also