Accusative
The accusative case is a grammatical case used to indicate the direct object of a transitive verb in many languages. It typically marks the noun or pronoun that is the recipient of the action of the verb. In some languages, the accusative case also indicates motion towards a specific location.
5 Key excerpts on "Accusative"
eBook - ePubGoing Deeper with New Testament Greek, Revised Edition
An Intermediate Study of the Grammar and Syntax of the New Testament
- Andreas J. Köstenberger, Benjamin L Merkle, Robert L. Plummer(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- B&H Academic(Publisher)
...Thus, we learn that God (subject) gave eternal life (direct object) to us (indirect object). Because Greek is an inflected language, distinguishing cases by distinctive endings, word order is not needed to mark out a word as the subject, direct object, or indirect object. Rather, word order may convey emphasis, especially when the conventional word order is reversed. As Brooks & Winbery note, “Case is that aspect of a substantive which indicates its grammatical relationship to the verb and/or other elements in the sentence.” 5 In the present volume, we distinguish, as is customary, between five major cases: (1) nominative, (2) genitive, (3) dative, (4) Accusative, and (5) vocative. 6 Other, primarily older, grammars employ the eight-case system. Young compares the five-case system and the eight-case system as follows: 7 FIVE-CASE SYSTEM (FORM) EIGHT-CASE SYSTEM (FUNCTION) 1. Nominative (Designation) 1. Nominative (Designation) 2. Genitive (Description/Separation) 2. Genitive (Description) 3. Ablative (Separation) 3. Dative (Interest/Location/Means) 4. Dative (Interest) 5. Locative (Location) 6. Instrumental (Means) 4. Accusative (Extension) 7. Accusative (Extension) 5. Vocative (Address) 8. Vocative (Address) As Robertson notes, the difference between the five-case and the eight-case system essentially consists in whether grammarians take as their point of departure the actual ending of the word (form) or the relationship expressed by the ending (function). 8 Those using an eight-case system build their system on continuing case distinctions (function) despite the identity of forms in certain cases. 9 Proponents of the five-case system start with distinct forms and proceed to distinguish between different types of usage of identical forms...
eBook - ePub- C.T. Onions(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...nouns, the one without any distinctive ending, and representing historically three cases, the other having the inflexion s, and representing the genitive. ii To speak of a noun as being in the nominative, Accusative, or dative case, is equivalent to saying that the noun would have been in that case in the corresponding OE. construction, or that the meaning expressed is such as we: associate with that case in highly inflected languages. 7 The loss of case-inflexion hadl three important and farreaching effects on the structure of the language. i It changed the character of certain constructions. For instance, the range of the nominative: was greatly increased as a result of bringing into prominence thie logical subject by placing it at the head of the sentence in the nominative case instead of in a less conspicuous position in the Accusative or dative case. See §102. ii It contributed to the settling of word-order. It has just been shown how the loss of an Accusative inflexion made the order subject + verb + object/predicate generally a necessity. iii It greatly increased the scope and importance of the preposition, just as the decay of verb-inflexions enlarged the scope of the auxiliary verb. Examples of the substitution of prepositions for the old case-endings will be found in §§105–31. See also §39. 102 The nominative The nominative is the case of the subject of a finite verb (§29), of a predicative noun in a predicate of the second form (§§6, 33, and of the subject of an absolute clause (§98). It has been mentioned in §101.7 that, in consequence of the decay of inflexions, a nominative construction has frequently supplanted an oblique case construction...
eBook - ePub- Diane C. Nelson(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 2 Grammatical Case Assignment in Finnish 2.1 Introduction Patterns of objective case in Finnish, or, more precisely, case marking on internal arguments and quasi-arguments, are problematic for Case Theory for a number of reasons and so have attracted scrutiny in the previous literature on Finnish. In simple transitives, subjects appear in nominative case and objects in Accusative (identical in form to singular genitive case in full DPs) or partitive case. However, despite predictions made by Case Theory and Burzio’s Generalization, full DP ‘nominative objects’ (here referred to as ‘zero Accusatives’) surface in certain well-defined syntactic contexts, but alternate with Accusative-marked animate pronouns in the same environments. Moreover, the distribution of both of these Accusative forms alternates freely with partitive case. A separate form for plurals also exists, which is identical for nominative and Accusative cases. Data is presented first illustrating nominative and objective case marking in transitive sentences. Next, the partitive/Accusative alternation is examined. Finally, data illustrating the theoretically problematic zero-Accusative case form is discussed, followed by a review of the previous literature on the topic. 2.2 Subject and Object Case Canonical subjects appear in nominative, morphologically unmarked, case and agree with the verb. Plural nominative case is signalled by a suffix, - t : 1 Nominative pronouns occur within the following paradigm: Objective case in simple transitive sentences may be marked with one of three suffix forms, Accusative - n and - t, and partitive -TA...
eBook - ePub- Iwona Sadowska(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Accusative case are numerous. To compile an exhaustive list of all the verbs that require the Accusative case is beyond the capacity of this book. Praktyczny słownik łączliwości składniowej czasowników polskich. (A practical dictionary of Polish verbal collocations) by Stanisław M ę dak offers an exhaustive list of verbs that can take certain cases. 1 Conceptually, verbs that require the Accusative case can be thought of as usually embracing, seizing, comprehending, or otherwise impacting the direct object wholly and completely. (See 2.5.5) The examples below only apply to statements and questions, not to negatives. (In negatives they would require the genitive case.) The Accusative is used: With verbs indicating a sense of p oss e ss i on, including the following verbs and other similar verbs: mieć ‘to have’; posiadać ‘to own’; obejmować ‘to include, to take’; zawierać ‘to contain’; and osiągać ‘to achieve.’ Mam siostr ę < ACC > i brata < ACC >. ‘I have a sister and a brother.’ Produkt posiada atest < ACC > Ministerstwa Zdrowia. ‘The product has the seal of approval of the Ministry of Health.’ Teren obejmuje las < ACC > i rzek ę < ACC >. ‘The area includes the forest and the river.’ Obejmij mnie < ACC >. ‘Embrace me.’ Kawa zawiera kofein ę < ACC >. ‘Coffee contains caffeine.’ Osiągnąć cel < ACC > ‘To achieve the goal.’ With verbs indicating a sense of consuming : jećś ‘to eat’; pić ‘to drink’; konsumować ‘to consume’; spożywać ‘to consume’; pochłaniać ‘to devour.’ Jem kanapk ę < ACC >. ‘I’m eating a sandwich.’ jeść pączka < ACC >. ‘to eat a donut’ (See 3.3.5.4) With verbs indicating sensing : widzieć ‘to see’; oglądać ‘to watch’; obserwować ‘to observe’; dotykać ‘to touch (figuratively)’; czuć ‘to feel’; stwierdzać ‘to certify.’ Czuj ę ból < ACC > i zm ę czenie < ACC >. ‘I feel pain and fatigue.’ Czuliśmy...
eBook - ePubModern Russian Grammar
A Practical Guide
- John Dunn, Shamil Khairov(Authors)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...3 Case 3.0 Introduction The use of the case system to indicate different grammatical functions can be illustrated by the three different forms of the English pronoun ‘he’. The form ‘he’ is used to indicate the subject of a sentence: He can see me. The form ‘him’ is used among other functions to indicate either the direct or the indirect object of a verb. It is also used after prepositions: I can see The classifi cation of verbshim. I gave him the book. I haven’t heard from him for a long time. The form ‘his’ is used to indicate possession: I have borrowed his book. The Russian case system is much more complicated. As noted in Chapter 2, there are six cases: nominative, genitive, dative, Accusative, instrumental and prepositional. In addition, the case system encompasses not only nouns, but also adjectives, pronouns and numerals. The declension of adjectives, pronouns and numerals is described in Chapters 6, 7 and 8 respectively. A further complication is that almost all of the cases are used in a wide variety of functions and the relationship between these different functions is in many instances neither obvious nor logical. The aim of this chapter is to examine the principal functions of each of the cases in turn. There are two points to note here. The first is that this chapter concentrates on the principal functions of the cases; further illustrations of the different ways in which they are used will be given in Part B of this book. The second is that each of the cases can be used after prepositions: a list of prepositions and the cases they are used with is given in 9.2. 3.1 The nominative Dictionaries and vocabularies The nominative is the form under which nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals are listed in dictionaries, vocabularies and other word lists...
