An oblique case (abbreviated obl; Latin: casus generalis) in linguistics is a noun case of synthetic languages that is used generally when a noun is the object of a verb or a preposition. An oblique case can appear in any case relationship except the nominative case of a sentence subject or the vocative case of direct address.
Languages with a nominative or an oblique case system also contrast with those that have an absolutive or ergative case system. In ergative-absolutive languages, the absolutive case is used for a direct object (the subject will then be in the ergative case); but the absolutive case is also used for the subject of an intransitive verb, where the subject is being passively described, rather than performing an action. Nevertheless, there are ergative-absolutive languages that demonstrate oblique cases; in the Northwest Caucasian languages Adyghe, Kabardian and Ubykh, the oblique case marker serves to mark the ergative case, the dative case, and the object of a verbal applicative.
Bulgarian, an analytic Slavic language, also has an oblique case—or, rather, two of them for pronouns:
Accusative:
Dative:
There is also one for masculine nouns with the article:
In analytic Indo-European languages, the oblique case is a relic of the original, more complex system of noun cases from the common Proto-Indo-European language. Oblique cases appear in the English pronoun set; these pronouns are often called objective pronouns. One can observe how the first person pronoun me serves a variety of grammatical functions:
The pronoun me is not inflected differently in any of these uses; it is used for all grammatical relationships except the genitive case of possession and a non-disjunctive nominative case as the subject.
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