List of grammatical cases
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This is a list of grammatical cases as they are used by various inflectional languages that have declension.
Contents |
[edit] Place and Time
Note: Most cases used for location and motion can be used for time as well.
[edit] Location
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adessive case | adjacent location | near/at/by the house | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Lithuanian | Livonian | Tlingit | Tsez | Quechua |
| Apudessive case[1] | location next to something | next to the house | Tsez |
| Inessive case | inside something | inside the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Ossetic | Tsez |
| Intrative case | between something | between the houses | Limbu |
| Locative case | location | at/on/in the house | Armenian (Eastern) | Azeri | Bangla (Bengali) | Belarusian | Chuvash | Croatian | Czech | Hungarian (only for some traditional town names) | Inari Sami | Latin (restricted) | Latvian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Northern Sami | Polish | Quechua, | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovene | Telugu | Tlingit | Turkish | Ukrainian | Uzbek (Note: the case in Slavic languages termed the "locative case" in English is actually a prepositional case.) |
| Pertingent case | in contact with something | touching the house | Tlingit |
| Subessive case | under something | under/below the house | Tsez |
| Superessive case | on the surface | on (top of) the house | Hungarian | Ossetic | Tsez |
[edit] Motion from
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ablative case | movement away from something | away from the house | Azeri | Chuvash | Erzya | Estonian | Evenki | Finnish | Hungarian | Inuktitut | Latin | Manchu | Ossetic | Sanskrit | Tlingit | Tsez | Turkish | Uzbek | Yukaghir |
| Delative case | movement from the surface | from (the top of) the house | Hungarian |
| Egressive case | marking the beginning of a movement or time | beginning from the house | Udmurt |
| Elative case | out of something | out of the house | Erzya | Estonian | Evenki | Finnish | Hungarian |
| Initiative case | starting point of an action | beginning from the house | Manchu |
[edit] Motion to
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allative case | in Hungarian and in Finnish: movement to (the adjacency of) something in Finnish: movement onto something | to the house onto the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Tlingit | Tsez | Turkish | Tuvan | Uzbek |
| Illative case | movement into something | into the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Inari Sami | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Tsez |
| Lative case | motion to location | to/into the house | Erzya | Finnish | Tsez | Turkish |
| Sublative case | movement onto the surface or below something | on(to) the house / under the house | Hungarian | Tsez |
| Terminative case | marking the end of a movement or time | as far as the house | Chuvash | Estonian | Hungarian | Manchu |
[edit] Motion via
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perlative case | movement through or along | through/along the house | Evenki | Tocharian A & B | Warlpiri | Yankunytjatjara |
| Prolative case | movement using a surface or way | by way of/through the house | Erzya | Estonian (rare) | Finnish | Tlingit |
| Prosecutive case | across or along | along the road | Kalaallisut |
| Vialis case | through or by | by way of the house, using the house | Inuktitut |
[edit] Time
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antessive case[2] | before something | before the concert | Dravidian languages |
| Temporal case | (used only with time expressions) specifying a time | at seven | Finnish | Hungarian |
[edit] Chart for review for the basic cases
| interior | surface | adjacency | state | |
| from | Elative | Delative | Ablative | Exessive |
| at/in | Inessive | Superessive | Adessive | Essive |
| (in)to | Illative | Sublative | Allative | Translative |
| via | Perlative | Vialis | Prosecutive | Prolative |
[edit] Morphosyntactic alignment
For meanings of the terms agent, patient, experiencer, and instrument, see thematic relation.
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Absolutive case (1) | patient, experiencer | he pushed the door and it opened | Basque |
| Absolutive case (2) | patient, involuntary experiencer | he pushed the door and it opened; he slipped | active languages |
| Absolutive case (3) | patient; experiencer; instrument | he pushed the door with his hand and it opened | Inuktitut |
| Accusative case (1) | patient | he pushed the door and it opened | Akkadian | Arabic | Azeri | Croatian | Czech | Erzya | Esperanto | Finnish | German | Greek | Hungarian | Icelandic | Inari Sami | Latin | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovene | Ukrainian |
| Accusative case (2) | direct object of a transitive verb; made from; about; for a time | I see her | Inuktitut | Persian | Turkish |
| Ergative case | agent | he pushed the door and it opened | Basque | Chechen | Dyirbal | Georgian | Samoan | Tlingit | Tsez |
| Ergative-genitive case | agent, possession | he pushed the door and it opened; her dog | Inuktitut |
| Instructive | means, answers question how? | by means of the house | Estonian (rare) | Finnish |
| Instrumental | instrument, answers question with which thing? | with the house | Belarusian | Croatian | Czech | Evenki | Georgian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Polish | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovak | Slovene | Tsez | Ukrainian | Yukaghir |
| Instrumental-comitative case | instrument, in company of something | with the house | Chuvash | Hungarian | Tlingit |
| Nominative case (1) | agent, experiencer | he pushed the door and it opened | nominative-accusative languages and nominative-absolutive languages |
| Nominative case (2) | agent; voluntary experiencer | he pushed the door and it opened; she paused | active languages |
| Objective case (1) | direct or indirect object of verb | I saw her; I gave her the book. | Bangla (Bengali) | Chuvash |
| Objective case (2) | direct or indirect object of verb or object of preposition; a catch-all case for any situation except nominative or genitive | I saw her; I gave her the book; with her. | English | Swedish | Danish | Norwegian |
| Oblique case | all-round case; any situation except nominative | concerning the house | Hindi | Telugu | Old French |
| Passive case or patient case | the subject of an intransitive verb or the logical complement of a transitive verb | The door opened | languages of the Caucasus |
| Pegative case | agent in a clause with a dative argument | he gave the book to him | Azoyú Tlapanec |
[edit] Relation
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ablative case | all-round indirect case | concerning the house | Sanskrit | Inuktitut | Latin | Lithuanian | Quenya |
| Aversive case | avoiding or fear | avoiding the house | Warlpiri | Yidiny |
| Benefactive case | for, for the benefit of, intended for | for the house | Basque | Quechua | Telugu |
| Causal case | because, because of | because of the house | Quechua | Telugu |
| Causal-final case | efficient or final cause | for a house | Chuvash | Hungarian |
| Comitative case | in company of something | with the house | Dumi | Ingush | Estonian | Finnish (rare) | Inari Sami | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Ossetic (only in Iron) |
| Dative case | shows direction or recipient | for/to the house | Azeri | Belarusian | Croatian | Czech | Erzya | Georgian | German | Greek | Hindi | Hungarian | Icelandic | Inuktitut | Latin | Lithuanian | Manchu | Ossetic | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovak | Slovene | Tsez | Turkish | Ukrainian |
| Distributive case | distribution by piece | per house | Chuvash | Hungarian | Manchu |
| Distributive-temporal case | how often something happens | daily; on Sundays | Hungarian |
| Genitive case | shows relationship, possession | of the house | Akkadian | Arabic | Azeri | Bangla (Bengali) | Belarusian | Chuvash | Croatian | Czech | Danish | Dutch | English | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Georgian | German | Greek | Icelandic | Inari Sami | Irish | Latin | Lithuanian | Manchu | Northern Sami | Norwegian | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovene | Swedish | Tsez | Turkish | Ukrainian |
| Ornative case | endowment with something | equipped with a house | Dumi |
| Possessed case | possession by something | the house is owned by someone | Tlingit |
| Possessive case | direct possession of something | owned by the house | English | Quenya |
| Privative case | lacking something | homeless, without a house | Chuvash | Wagiman |
| Semblative case | Similarity to something | that tree is like a house | Wagiman |
| Sociative case | along with something, together with something | with the house | Hungarian | Ossetic |
[edit] Semantics
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partitive case | used for amounts | three (of the) houses | Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami | Russian | Skolt Sami |
| Prepositional case | when certain prepositions precede the noun | in/on/about the house | Belarusian | Czech | Polish | Russian | Slovak | Ukrainian (note: this case is called lokál in Czech and in Slovak, miejscownik in Polish, місцевий (miscevý) in Ukrainian and месны (miesny) in Belarusian; these names imply that this case also covers Locative case) |
| Vocative case | used for addressing someone, with or without a preposition | Hey, father! O father! Father! | Belarusian (rare) | Bulgarian | Croatian | Czech | Georgian | Greek | Hebrew (rare) | Hindi | Irish | Itelmen | Ket | Latin | Lithuanian | Macedonian | Nivkh | Polish | Romanian | Russian (rare) | Sanskrit | Serbian | Telugu | Ukrainian |
[edit] State
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abessive case | the lack of something | without the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami | Skolt Sami |
| Comparative case | similarity with something | similar to the house | Dumi | Mari | Nivkh |
| Equative case | comparison with something | like the house | Ossetic | Sumerian | Tlingit | Tsez |
| Essive case | temporary state of being | as the house | Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami | Inuktitut | Middle Egyptian | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Tsez |
| Essive-formal case | marking a condition as a quality | as a house | Hungarian | Manchu |
| Essive-modal case | marking a condition as a quality | as a house | Hungarian |
| Exessive case | marking a transition from a condition | from as being a house | Estonian (rare) | Finnish (dialectal) |
| Formal case | marking a condition as a quality | as a house | Hungarian |
| Identical case | showing that something is identical | being the house | Manchu |
| Orientative case | oriented towards something | turned towards the house | Chukchi | Manchu |
| Revertive case | backwards to something | against the house | Manchu |
| Translative case | change of a condition into another | (turning) into a house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Khanty | Manchu |
[edit] References
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2009) |
- ^ Mentioned in: Catherine Fuchs, Stéphane Robert, Language Diversity and Cognitive Representations, 1999, 229 pages, Google book search page
- ^ S. Agesthialingom, Prakya Sreesaila Subrahmanyam, Dravidian Linguistics- V: (proceedings of the Seminar on Dravidian Linguistics- V), Page 275, 1976 - 582 pages, Google book search link quote: "(6) 'before' (antessive), (7) 'behind, ..."
