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Dative case

Encyclopedia : D : DA : DAT : Dative case

The dative case (also called the third case) is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. The name is derived from the Latin dativus, meaning "appropriate to giving". The thing being given may be a tangible object—such as "a book" or "a pen"—or it may be an intangible abstraction, such as "an answer" or "help". The dative generally marks the indirect object of a verb, although in some instances, the dative is used for the direct object of a verb pertaining directly to an act of giving something. In Russian, for example, the verb 'to call' always takes the dative.

In certain languages, the dative case has assimilated the functions of other now-extinct cases. Dative also marks possession in Classical Greek, which has lost the locative and instrumental cases. The dative assumed their functions. In Scottish Gaelic, the dative case is used by nouns following simple prepositions and the definite article. In Georgian, the dative case also marks the subject of the sentence in some verbs and some tenses. This is also called the dative construction.

The dative was common among early Indo-European languages and has survived to the present in the Balto-Slavic branch and the Germanic branch, among others. It also exists in similar forms in several non–Indo-European languages, such as the Finno-Ugric family of languages and Japanese.

Languages that use or used the dative case include:

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The dative case in English

The Old English language, current until approximately the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, had a dative case; however, the English case system gradually fell into disuse during the Middle English period, when the accusative and dative pronouns merged into a single objective pronoun used in both roles. This merging of accusative and dative functionality in Middle and Modern English has led most modern grammarians to discard the "accusative" and "dative" labels in English as obsolete, in favor of the term "objective".

While the dative case is no longer a part of modern English usage, it survives in a few set expressions. One good example is the word "methinks", with the meaning "it seems to me". It survives in this fixed form from the days of Old English (having undergone, however, phonetic changes with the rest of the language), in which it was constructed as "me" (the dative case of the personal pronoun) + "thinks" ("to seem", a verb closely related to the verb "to think", but distinct from it in Old English; later it merged with "to think" and lost this meaning).

The pronoun whom is also a remnant of the dative case in English, descending from the Old English dative pronoun "hwām" (as opposed to the nominative "who", which descends from Old English "hwā") — though "whom" also absorbed the functions of the Old English accusative pronoun "hwone". Likewise, "him" is a remnant of both the Old English dative "him" and accusative "hine", "her" serves for both Old English dative "hire" and accusative "hīe", etc.

In current English usage, the indirect object of an action is sometimes expressed with a prepositional phrase of "to" or "for", though an objective pronoun can also be placed directly after the main verb and used in a dative manner, provided that the verb has a direct object as well; for example, "He gave that to me" can also be phrased as "He gave me that", and "He built a snowman for me" can also be rendered as "He built [for] me a snowman". In both examples, the generic objective pronoun "me" functions as a dative pronoun does in languages which still retain distinct accusative and dative cases.

The dative case in German

The dative is generally used to mark the indirect object of a German sentence. Certain German prepositions require the dative: aus, außer, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu and gegenüber (a sequence that may be remembered by singing them to the main tune of The Blue Danube as a mnemonic device). Other prepositions (e.g. auf, an, unter") may be used with dative (indicating current location), or accusative (indicating direction towards something). Das Buch steht auf dem (dative) Tisch but Ich stelle das Buch auf den (accusative) Tisch.

Note that the concept of an indirect object may be rendered by a prepositional phrase. In this case, the noun or pronoun's case is determined by the preposition, NOT by its function in the sentence. Consider this sentence:

Here, the subject, Ich, is in the nominative case, the direct object, das Buch, is in the accusative case, and zum Verleger is in the dative case, since zu always requires the dative (zum is a contraction of zu + dem). However: In this sentence, Freund would seem to be the indirect object, but because it follows an (direction), the accusative is required, not the dative.

The ditransitive verb lehren (to teach) requires the dative case for the indirect object (the recipient, in this case), but in colloqial speech, people tend to use the transitive verb lernen (to learn) with the Dative, instead. An example for that would be:

This is not regarded as proper German and is thus not recommended.

Some German verbs require the dative for their direct objects. Common examples include folgen, helfen and antworten. In each case, the direct object of the verb is rendered in dative.

The dative case in Latin

Except the main case (Dativus), there are 3 other kinds:

The dative case in Greek

In addition to its main function as the Dativus, the dative case has different other functions in Classical GreekMorwood, James. Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek. Oxford University Press, 2002. (ISBN 0-19-521851-5):

The dative case in Tsez

In the Northeast Caucasian languages, such as Tsez, the dative also takes up the functions of the lative case in marking the direction of an action. By some linguists, they are still regarded as two separate cases in those languages, although the suffixes are the exact same for both cases. Other linguists list them separately only for the purpose of separating syntactic cases from locative cases. An example with the ditransitive verb "show" (literally: "make see") is given below:
Кидбā ужихъор кIетIу биквархо.
kidb-ā uži-qo-r kʼetʼu b-ikʷa-r-xo
girl:OBL-ERG boy-POSS-DAT/LAT cat:[III]:ABS III-see-CAUS-PRES
"The girl shows the cat to the boy."

The dative/lative is also used to indicate possession, as in the example below, because there is no such verb as "to have".

Кидбехъор кIетIу зовси.
kidbe-qo-r kʼetʼu zow-si
girl:OBL-POSS-DAT/LAT cat:ABS be:PST-PST
"The girl had a cat."
The dative/lative case usually occurs, as in the examples above, in combination with another suffix as poss-lative case; this should not be regarded as a separate case, though, as many of the locative cases in Tsez are constructed analytically; hence, they are actually a combination of two case suffixes. See Tsez language#Locative case suffixes for further details.

Verbs of perception or emotion (like "see", "know", "love", "want") also require the logical subject to stand in the dative/lative case, note that in this example the "pure" dative/lative without its POSS-suffix is used.

ГIалир РатIи йетих.
ˁAli-r Patʼi y-eti-x
Ali-DAT/LAT Fatima:[II]:ABS II-love-PRES
"Ali loves Fatima."

See also

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Reference

 

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