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

CaseUsageExampleFound in
Adessive caseadjacent locationnear/at/by the house Estonian | Finnish[1] | Hungarian | Lezgian | Lithuanian | Livonian | Tlingit | Tsez
Antessive caseanterior locationbefore the house Dravidian languages [2]
Apudessive case[3]location next to somethingnext to the house Tsez
Inessive caseinside somethinginside the house Armenian | Basque | Erzya | Estonian | Lithuanian | Finnish[4] | Hungarian | Ossetic | Tsez
Intrative casebetween somethingbetween the houses Limbu | Quechua
Locative caselocationat/on/in the house Armenian (Eastern) | Azeri | Bengali | Belarusian | Bosnian | Chuvash | Croatian | Czech | Hungarian (only for some traditional town names) | Inari Sami | Inuktitut | Japanese[5] | Kashmiri | 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 casein contact with somethingtouching the house Tlingit | Archi
Postessive caseposterior locationbehind the house Lezgian | Agul
Subessive caseunder somethingunder/below the house Tsez
Superessive caseon the surfaceon (top of) the house Hungarian | Ossetic | Tsez | Finnish[6]

Motion from

CaseUsageExampleFound in
Ablative casemovement away from somethingaway from the house Albanian | Armenian (Eastern) | Armenian (Western) | Azeri | Chuvash | Erzya | Estonian | Evenki | Finnish[1] | Hungarian | Inuktitut | Japanese[5] | Latin | Manchu | Ossetic | Quechua | Sanskrit | Tibetan | Tlingit | Tsez | Turkish | Uzbek | Yukaghir
Adelative casemovement from somewhere nearfrom near the houseLezgian
Delative casemovement from the surfacefrom (the top of) the house Hungarian | Finnish[6]
Egressive casemarking the beginning of a movement or timebeginning from the house Udmurt
Elative caseout of somethingout of the house Erzya | Estonian | Evenki | Finnish[4] | Hungarian
Initiative casestarting point of an actionbeginning from the house Manchu
Postelative casemovement from behindfrom behind the houseLezgian

Motion to

CaseUsageExampleFound in
Allative casein Hungarian and in Finnish:
movement to (the adjacency of) something
in Estonian and in Finnish:
movement onto something
to the house

onto the house
Erzya | Estonian | Finnish[1] | Hungarian | Inuktitut | Japanese[5] | Kashmiri | Lithuanian | Manchu | Tlingit | Tsez | Turkish | Tuvan | Uzbek
Illative casemovement into somethinginto the house Erzya | Estonian | Finnish[4] | Hungarian | Inari Sami | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Tsez | Esperanto
Lative casemovement to somethingto/into the house Erzya | Finnish[6] | Quechua | Tsez | Turkish | German | Esperanto
Sublative casemovement onto the surface or below somethingon(to) the house / under the house Hungarian | Tsez | Finnish[6]
Superlative casemovement over or onto the top of somethingon(to) the house / on top of the house Northeast Caucasian languages: Bezhta | Hinuq | Tsez
Terminative casemarking the end of a movement or timeas far as the house Chuvash | Estonian | Hungarian | Japanese[5] | Manchu | Quechua

Motion via

CaseUsageExampleFound in
Perlative casemovement through or alongthrough/along the house Evenki | Tocharian A & B | Warlpiri | Yankunytjatjara
Prolative case (= prosecutive case, vialis case)movement using a surface or wayby way of/through the house Erzya | Estonian (rare) | Finnish (rare)[6] | Tlingit | Greenlandic | Inuktitut

Time

CaseUsageExampleFound in
Ablative casespecifying a time when and within whichE.g.: eō tempore, "at that time"; paucīs hōrīs, "within a few hours". Latin | Armenian (Eastern) | Armenian (Western) | Finnish
Accusative caseindicating 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 | Serbian |

Croatian | Russian

Essive caseused for specifying days and dates when something happensE.g.: maanantaina, "on Monday";
kuudentena joulukuuta, "on the 6th of December".
Finnish | Estonian
Limitative casespecifying a deadlineE.g.: 午後5時半までに (Gogo go-ji han made-ni) "by 5:30 PM" Japanese[5]
Temporal casespecifying a timeE.g.: hétkor "at seven" or hét órakor "at seven o'clock"; éjfélkor "at midnight"; karácsonykor "at Christmas". Hungarian | Finnish (rare)[6]

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 Prolative

Morphosyntactic alignment

For meanings of the terms agent, patient, experiencer, and instrument, see thematic relation.

CaseUsageExampleFound in
Absolutive case (1)patient, experiencer; subject of an intransitive verb and direct object of a transitive verbhe pushed the door and it opened Basque | Tibetan
Absolutive case (2)patient, involuntary experiencerhe pushed the door and it opened; he slipped active languages
Absolutive case (3)patient; experiencer; instrumenthe pushed the door with his hand and it opened Inuktitut
Accusative case (1)patienthe 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 | Japanese[5] | 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 timeI see her Inuktitut | Persian | Turkish | Serbo-Croatian
Agentive caseagent, specifies or asks about who or what; specific agent that is subset of a general topic or subjectit was she who committed the crime; as for him, his head hurts Japanese[5]
Ergative caseagent; subject of a transitive verbhe pushed the door and it opened Basque | Chechen | Dyirbal | Georgian | Kashmiri | Samoan | Tibetan | Tlingit | Tsez
Ergative-genitive caseagent, possessionhe pushed the door and it opened; her dog Classic Maya | Inuktitut
Instructivemeans, answers question how?by means of the house Estonian (rare) | Finnish[7]
Instrumentalinstrument, answers question using which thing?with the house Armenian (Eastern) | Armenian (Western) | Belarusian | Bosnian | Croatian | Czech | Evenki | Georgian | Japanese[5] | Kashmiri | Latvian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Polish | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovak | Slovene | Tsez | Ukrainian | Yukaghir
Instrumental-comitative caseinstrument, in company of somethingwith the house Chuvash | Hungarian | Tlingit
Nominative case (1)agent, experiencer; subject of a transitive or intransitive verbhe pushed the door and it opened nominative–accusative languages (including marked nominative languages)
Nominative case (2)agent; voluntary experiencerhe pushed the door and it opened; she paused active languages
Objective case (1)direct or indirect object of verbI 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 genitiveI saw her; I gave her the book; with her. English | Swedish | Danish | Norwegian | Bulgarian
Oblique caseall-round case; any situation except nominative or vocativeconcerning 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 verbThe door opened languages of the Caucasus | Ainu
Pegative caseagent in a clause with a dative argumenthe gave the book to him Azoyú Tlapanec

Relation

CaseUsageExampleFound in
Ablative caseall-round indirect caseconcerning the house Albanian | Armenian (Eastern) | Armenian (Western) | Sanskrit | Inuktitut | Kashmiri | Latin | Lithuanian | Finnish[1]
Aversive caseavoiding or fearavoiding the house Warlpiri | Yidiny
Benefactive casefor, for the benefit of, intended forfor the house Basque | Quechua | Telugu
Causal casebecause, because ofbecause of the house Quechua | Telugu
Causal-final caseefficient or final causefor a house Chuvash | Hungarian
Comitative casein company of somethingwith the house Dumi | Ingush | Estonian | Finnish (rare);[7] Inari Sami | Japanese[5] | Kashmiri | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Ossetic (only in Iron) | Tibetan
Dative caseshows direction or recipientfor/to the house Albanian | Armenian (Eastern) | Armenian (Western) | Azeri | Belarusian | Bosnian | Croatian | Czech | Erzya | Faroese | Georgian | German | Greek | Hindi | Hungarian | Icelandic | Inuktitut | Japanese[5] | Kashmiri | Latin | Latvian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Ossetic | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Scottish Gaelic | Serbian | Slovak | Slovene | Tsez | Turkish | Ukrainian

^† The case classically referred to as dative in Scottish Gaelic has shifted to, and is sometimes called, a prepositional case.

Distributive casedistribution by pieceper house Chuvash | Hungarian | Manchu | Finnish[6]
Distributive-temporal casehow often something happensdaily; on Sundays Hungarian; Finnish[6]
Genitive caseshows generic relationship, generally ownership, but also composition, reference, description, etc.of the house; the house's Akkadian | Albanian | Arabic | Armenian (Eastern) | Armenian (Western) | Azeri | Bengali | Belarusian | Bosnian | Chuvash | Croatian | Czech | Danish | Dutch | English | Erzya | Estonian | Faroese | Finnish | Georgian | German | Greek | Hungarian | Icelandic | Inari Sami | Irish | Japanese[5] | Kashmiri | Latin | Latvian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Northern Sami | Norwegian | Persian[8] | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Scottish Gaelic | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovene | Swedish | Tibetan | Tsez | Turkish | Ukrainian
Ornative caseendowment with somethingequipped with a house Dumi; Hungarian
Possessed casepossession by somethingthe house is owned by someone Tlingit
Possessive casedirect ownership of somethingowned by the house English | Turkish
Privative caselacking somethingwithout a house Chuvash | Wagiman
Semblative/Similative caseSimilarity to somethingthat tree is like a house Wagiman
Sociative casealong with something, together with somethingwith the house Hungarian | Ossetic

Semantics

CaseUsageExampleFound in
Partitive caseused for amountsthree (of the) houses Estonian | Finnish[9] | Inari Sami | Russian | Skolt Sami
Prepositional casewhen certain prepositions precede the nounin/on/about the house Belarusian | Czech | Polish | Russian | Scottish Gaelic | Slovak | Ukrainian

^† This case is called lokál in Czech and Slovak, miejscownik in Polish, місцевий (miscevý) in Ukrainian and месны (miesny) in Belarusian; these names imply that this case also covers Locative case.
^‡ The prepositional case in Scottish Gaelic is classically referred to as a dative case.

Vocative caseused for addressing someone, with or without a prepositionHey, father!
O father!
Father!
Albanian (rare) | Belarusian (rare) | Bulgarian | Bosnian | Croatian | Czech | Georgian | Greek | Hindi | Irish | Itelmen | Kashmiri | Ket | Latin | Latvian | Lithuanian | Macedonian | Nivkh | Polish | Romanian | Russian (rare) | Sanskrit | Scottish Gaelic | Serbian | Slovak | Telugu | Ukrainian | Nahuatl

State

CaseUsageExampleFound in
Abessive casethe lack of somethingwithout the house Erzya | Estonian | Finnish[7] | Inari Sami | Skolt Sami | Quechua
Adverbial casebeing as somethingas a house Georgian | Udmurt | Finnic languages | Abkhaz
Comparative casesimilarity with somethingsimilar to the house Dumi | Mari | Nivkh
Equative casecomparison with somethinglike the house Ossetic | Sumerian | Tlingit | Tsez
Essive casetemporary state of beingas the house Estonian | Finnish[9] | Inari Sami | Inuktitut | Middle Egyptian | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Tsez
Essive-formal casemarking a condition as a quality (a kind of shape)as a house Hungarian | Manchu
Essive-modal casemarking a condition as a quality (a way of being)as a house Hungarian
Exessive casemarking a transition from a conditionfrom being a house (i.e., "it stops being a house") Estonian (rare) | Finnish (dialectal)
Formal casemarking a condition as a qualityas a house Hungarian
Identical caseshowing that something is identicalbeing the house Manchu
Orientative caseoriented towards somethingturned towards the house Chukchi | Manchu
Revertive casebackwards to somethingagainst the house Manchu
Translative casechange of a condition into another(turning) into a house Erzya | Estonian | Finnish[9] | Hungarian | Khanty | Manchu

References

  1. Mäkinen, Panu. "Finnish Grammar - Exterior local cases". users.jyu.fi. University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
  2. 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, ..."
  3. Robert, Stéphane Robert (1999). Language Diversity and Cognitive Representations. p. 229. ISBN 978-9027223555.
  4. Mäkinen, Panu. "Finnish Grammar - Interior Local Cases". users.jyu.fi. University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
  5. Takahashi, Tarou; et al. (2010). A Japanese Grammar (in Japanese) (4 ed.). Japan: Hitsuji Shobou. p. 27. ISBN 978-4-89476-244-2.
  6. Mäkinen, Panu. "Finnish grammar - adverbial cases". users.jyu.fi. University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
  7. Mäkinen, Panu. "Finnish Grammar - Means Cases". users.jyu.fi. University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
  8. Behrang QasemiZadeh, Saeed Rahimi, Persian in MULTEXT-East Framework, 5th International Conference on NLP, FinTAL 2006 Turku, Finland, August 23–25, 2006 Proceedings
  9. Mäkinen, Panu. "Finnish Grammar - General Local Cases". users.jyu.fi. University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
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