List of grammatical cases
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This is a list of cases as they are used by various inflectional languages that have declension.
Contents
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 | Hungarian | Lithuanian | Tlingit | Tsez |
| Apudessive case | location next to something | next to the house | Tsez |
| Inessive case | inside something | inside the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Ossetic | Tsez |
| Locative case | location | at/on/in the house | Azeri | Bangla (Bengali) | Belarusian | Croatian | Czech | Hungarian (only for some traditional town names) | Inari Sami | Latin | Latvian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Northern Sami | Polish | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovenian | Telugu | Tlingit | Turkish (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 |
| Temporal case | (used only with time expressions) specifying a time | at seven | Hungarian |
| Subessive case | under something | under/below the house | Tsez |
| Superessive case | on the surface | on (top of) the house | Hungarian | Ossetic | Tsez |
Motion from
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ablative case | movement away from something | away from the house | Azeri | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Inuktitut | Latin | Manchu | Ossetic | Sanskrit | Tlingit | Tsez | Turkish |
| 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 | Finnish | 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 | Hungarian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Tlingit | Tsez | Turkish |
| 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 | Turkish |
| Sublative case | movement onto the surface | on(to) the house | Hungarian | Tsez |
| Terminative case | marking the end of a movement or time | as far as the house | Estonian | Hungarian | Manchu |
Motion via
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perlative case | movement through or along | through/along the house | Tocharian A & B | Warlpiri | Yankunytjatjara |
| Prolative case | movement using a surface or way | by way of/through the house | Erzya | Estonian | 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 |
Chart for review for the basic cases
| interior | surface | adjacency | |
| from | Elative case | Delative case | Ablative case |
| at/in | Inessive case | Superessive case | Adessive case |
| (in)to | Illative case | Sublative case | Allative case |
Morphosyntactic alignment
For meanings of the terms agent, patient, experiencer, and instrument, see theta role.
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Absolutive case (1) | patient, experiencer | he pushed the door and it opened | Basque |
| Absolutive case (2) | patient, involuntary experiencer | she crossed the ice; 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 | she opened the door | Arabic | Azeri | Croatian | Czech | Erzya | Esperanto | Finnish | German | Hungarian | Inari Sami | Latin | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovenian |
| 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 |
| Instrumental | instrument, answers question with which thing? | with the house | Belarusian | Croatian | Czech | Georgian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Polish | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovak | Slovenian | Tsez |
| Instrumental-comitative case | instrument, in company of something | with the house | Hungarian | Tlingit |
| Instructive | means, answers question how? | by means of the house | Estonian (rare) | Finnish |
| Nominative case (1) | agent | he pushed the door and it opened | nominative-accusative languages |
| Nominative case (2) | agent; voluntary experiencer | he pushed the door and it opened; she paused | nominative-absolutive languages |
| Objective case (1) | direct or indirect object of verb | I saw her; I gave her the book. | Bangla (Bengali) |
| 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 |
| Oblique case | all-round case; any situation except nominative | concerning the house | Hindi | Telugu |
| 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 |
Relation
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ablative case | all-round indirect case | concerning the house | Inuktitut | Latin | Lithuanian |
| 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 | Hungarian |
| Comitative case | in company of something | with the house | Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami |
| Dative case | shows direction or receiver | for/to the house | Azeri | Belarusian | Croatian | Czech | Erzya | Georgian | German | Hindi | Hungarian | Inuktitut | Latin | Lithuanian | Manchu | Ossetic | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovak | Slovenian | Tsez |
| Dedative case (Respective) | related to | related to the house | Quenya |
| Distributive case | distribution by piece | per house | Finnish | Hungarian | Manchu |
| Distributive-temporal case | how often something happens | daily; on Sundays | Finnish | Hungarian |
| Genitive case | shows relationship, possession | of the house | Arabic | Azeri | Bangla (Bengali) | Belarusian | Croatian | Czech | Danish | Dutch | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Georgian | German | Greek | Inari Sami | Irish | Latin | Lithuanian | Manchu | Northern Sami | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovenian | Tsez |
| Possessed case | possession by something | the house is owned by something | Tlingit |
| Possessive case | direct possession of something | owned by the house | English | Quenya |
| Sociative case | along with something, together with something | with the house | Hungarian | Ossetic |
Semantics
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disjunctive case | used when the subject is repeated for emphasis or to itemize a plural subject | the house and the car, they're both here | French (only for pronouns) |
| 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 | Czech, Polish, Russian, Slovak (note: this case is called lokál in Czech and in Slovak, and miejscownik in Polish) |
| Vocative case | used for addressing someone, with or without a preposition | Hey, father! O father! Father! | Arabic | Belarusian (rare) | Croatian | Czech | Georgian | Greek | Hindi | Irish | Latin | Lithuanian | Polish | Romanian | Russian (rare) | Sanskrit | Serbian | Telugu | Ukrainian |
State
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abessive case | the lack of something | without the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami | Skolt Sami |
| Equative case | comparison with something | like the house | 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 |
| Excessive case | marking a transition from a condition | from as being a house | Estonian | Finnish |
| 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 | 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 | Manchu |
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