List of grammatical cases
This is a list of grammatical cases as they are used by various inflectional languages that have declension.
Place and time
Note: Most cases used for location and motion can be used for time as well.
Location
Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
---|---|---|---|
Adessive case | adjacent location | near/at/by the house | Estonian | Finnish [1]| Hungarian | Lezgian | Lithuanian | Livonian | Tlingit | Tsez | Quechua |
Apudessive case[2] | location next to something | next to the house | Tsez |
Inessive case | inside something | inside the house | Basque | Erzya | Estonian | Lithuanian | Finnish [3] | Hungarian | Ossetic | Tsez |
Intrative case | between something | between the houses | Limbu |
Locative case | location | at/on/in the house | Armenian (Eastern) | Azeri | Bengali | Belarusian | Bosnian | Chuvash | Croatian | Czech | Hungarian (only for some traditional town names) | Inari Sami | Inuktitut | Latin (restricted) | Latvian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Northern Sami | Polish | Quechua | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovene | Sorbian | 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 | Finnish [4] | |
Motion from
Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
---|---|---|---|
Ablative case | movement away from something | away from the house | Albanian | Armenian (Eastern) | Armenian (Western) | Azeri | Chuvash | Erzya | Estonian | Evenki | Finnish [1] | Hungarian | Inuktitut | Latin | Manchu | Ossetic | Sanskrit | Tibetan | Tlingit | Tsez | Turkish | Uzbek | Yukaghir |
Delative case | movement from the surface | from (the top of) the house | Hungarian | Finnish [4] | |
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 [3]| Hungarian |
Initiative case | starting point of an action | beginning from the house | Manchu |
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 [1]| Hungarian | Inuktitut | Lithuanian | Manchu | Tlingit | Tsez | Turkish | Tuvan | Uzbek |
Illative case | movement into something | into the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish [3] | Hungarian | Inari Sami | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Tsez |
Lative case | movement to something | to/into the house | Erzya | Finnish [4] | Tsez | Turkish |
Sublative case | movement onto the surface or below something | on(to) the house / under the house | Hungarian | Tsez; Finnish [4] | |
Terminative case | marking the end of a movement or time | as far as the house | Chuvash | Estonian | Hungarian | Manchu |
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 (rare) [4] | Tlingit |
Prosecutive case | across or along | along the road | Greenlandic |
Vialis case | through or by | by way of the house, through the house | Inuktitut |
Time
Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
---|---|---|---|
Temporal case | (used only with time expressions) specifying a time | E.g.: hétkor "at seven" or hét órakor "at seven o'clock"; éjfélkor "at midnight"; karácsonykor "at Christmas". | Hungarian | Finnish (rare) [4] | |
Accusative case | indicating duration of time known as the accusative of duration of time | E.g.: multos annos, "for many years"; ducentos annos, "for 200 years." |
Latin, German, Esperanto |
Essive case | used for specifying days and dates when something happens | E.g.: maanantaina, "on Monday"; kuudentena joulukuuta, "on the 6th of December". |
Finnish |
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 |
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; subject of an intransitive verb and direct object of a transitive verb | he pushed the door and it opened | Basque | Tibetan |
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 | Albanian | Arabic | Armenian (Eastern) | Armenian (Western) | Azeri | Bosnian | Croatian | Czech | Erzya | Esperanto | Faroese | Finnish | German | Greek | Hungarian | Icelandic | Inari Sami | Latin | Latvian | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovene | Ukrainian | Georgian |
Accusative case (2) | direct object of a transitive verb; made from; about; for a time | I see her | Inuktitut | Persian | Turkish | Serbo-Croatian |
Ergative case | agent; subject of a transitive verb | he pushed the door and it opened | Basque | Chechen | Dyirbal | Georgian | Samoan | Tibetan | Tlingit | Tsez |
Ergative-genitive case | agent, possession | he pushed the door and it opened; her dog | Classic Maya | Inuktitut |
Instructive | means, answers question how? | by means of the house | Estonian (rare) | Finnish [5] |
Instrumental | instrument, answers question using which thing? | with the house | Armenian (Eastern) | Armenian (Western) | Belarusian | Bosnian | Croatian | Czech | Evenki | Georgian | Latvian | 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; subject of a transitive or intransitive verb | 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. | Bengali | Chuvash |
Objective/Oblique (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 | Bulgarian |
Oblique case | all-round case; any situation except nominative or vocative | concerning the house | Anglo-Norman | Hindi | Old French | Old Provençal | Telugu | Tibetan |
Intransitive case (also called passive 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 |
Relation
Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
---|---|---|---|
Ablative case | all-round indirect case | concerning the house | Albanian | Armenian (Eastern) | Armenian (Western) | Sanskrit | Inuktitut | Latin | Lithuanian | Finnish [1] | |
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);[5] Inari Sami | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Ossetic (only in Iron) | Tibetan |
Dative case | shows direction or recipient | for/to the house | Albanian | Armenian (Eastern) | Armenian (Western) | Azeri | Belarusian | Bosnian | Croatian | Czech | Erzya | Faroese | Georgian | German | Greek | Hindi | Hungarian | Icelandic | Inuktitut | Latin | Latvian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Ossetic | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Scottish Gaelic | Serbian | Slovak | Slovene | Tsez | Turkish | Ukrainian |
Distributive case | distribution by piece | per house | Chuvash | Hungarian | Manchu | Finnish [4] | |
Distributive-temporal case | how often something happens | daily; on Sundays | Hungarian; Finnish [4] | |
Genitive case | shows relationship, possession | of the house | Akkadian | Albanian | Arabic | Armenian (Eastern) | Armenian (Western) | Azeri | Bengali | Belarusian | Bosnian | Chuvash | Croatian | Czech | Danish | Dutch | English | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Georgian | German | Greek | Hungarian | Icelandic | Inari Sami | Irish | Latin | Latvian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Northern Sami | Norwegian | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Scottish Gaelic | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovene | Swedish | Tibetan | 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 |
Privative case | lacking something | 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 |
Semantics
Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
---|---|---|---|
Partitive case | used for amounts | three (of the) houses | Estonian | Finnish [6] | 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! |
Albanian (rare) | Belarusian (rare) | Bulgarian | Bosnian | Croatian | Czech | Georgian | Greek | Hindi | Irish | Itelmen | Ket | Latin | Latvian | Lithuanian | Macedonian | Nivkh | Polish | Romanian | Russian (rare) | Sanskrit | Scottish Gaelic | Serbian | Telugu | Ukrainian | Nahuatl |
State
Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
---|---|---|---|
Abessive case | the lack of something | without the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish [5] | Inari Sami | Skolt Sami | Quechua |
Adverbial case | being as something | as a house | Georgian | Udmurt | Finnic languages| Abkhaz |
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 [6] | Inari Sami | Inuktitut | Middle Egyptian | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Tsez |
Essive-formal case | marking a condition as a quality (a kind of shape) | as a house | Hungarian | Manchu |
Essive-modal case | marking a condition as a quality (a way of being) | as a house | Hungarian |
Exessive case | marking a transition from a condition | from being a house (i.e., "it stops 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 [6] | Hungarian | Khanty | Manchu |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Mäkinen, Panu. "Finnish Grammar - Exterior local cases". users.jyu.fi. University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
- ↑ Robert, Stéphane Robert (1999). Language Diversity and Cognitive Representations. p. 229.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Mäkinen, Panu. "Finnish Grammar - Interior Local Cases". users.jyu.fi. University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 Mäkinen, Panu. "Finnish grammar - adverbial cases". users.jyu.fi. University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Mäkinen, Panu. "Finnish Grammar - Means Cases". users.jyu.fi. University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Mäkinen, Panu. "Finnish Grammar - General Local Cases". users.jyu.fi. University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved 6 March 2015.