accusative case - wikipedia

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Accusative case 1

Accusative case

The accusative case (abbreviated acc) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive

verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of (some or all) prepositions. It is a noun that is

having something done to it, usually joined (such as in Latin) with the nominative case, making it an indirect object.

The accusative case existed in Proto-Indo-European and is present in some Indo-European languages (including

Latin, Sanskrit, Greek, German, Polish, Swedish, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian), in the Uralic languages, in Altaic

languages, and in Semitic languages (such as Classical Arabic). Finnic languages, such as Finnish and Estonian,

have two cases to mark objects, the accusative and the partitive case. In morphosyntactic alignment terms, both

perform the accusative function, but the accusative object is telic, while the partitive is not.

Modern English, which almost entirely lacks declension in its nouns, does not have an explicitly marked accusative

case even in the pronouns. Such forms as whom, them, and herderive rather from the old Germanic dative forms, of

which the -m and -r endings are characteristic. This conflation of the old accusative, dative, instrumental, and (after

prepositions) genitive cases is the oblique case. Most modern English grammarians no longer use the Latin

accusative/dative model, though they tend to use the terms objective for oblique, subjective for nominative, andpossessive for genitive (see Declension in English).Hine, a true accusative masculine third person singular pronoun,

is attested in some northern English dialects as late as the 19th century.[1]

Etymology

The English name "accusative (case)" is an Anglicisation of the Latin accstvus (csus),[2] which was translated

from Ancient Greek (), aitiatik (ptsis).[3] The Greek term can mean either "(inflection) for

something caused" or "for an accusation".[4] The intended meaning was likely the first, which would be translated as

Latin caustvus[5] or effectvus,[6] but the Latin term was a translation of the second. Compare Russian

vintelnyj, from vint"to blame".

Description

In the sentence He sees the woman, "he" is the subject of the sentence, while in The woman seeshim, "him" is the

object. In English we distinguish the two uses by different forms of the pronoun: he/him. If, however, instead of a

pronoun, we use a noun, we make no such distinction in the form of the word. Thus, we use the same word "man" in

both The man sees the woman and The woman seesthe man. In many languages, however, different forms of the

word are used not only for pronouns, but for nouns too. For example, in Latin The man sees the woman = Vir

feminam videt, while The woman sees the man =Femina virum videt. For "man", Latin uses "vir" for the subject, and

"virum" for the an object. Likewise, in the same pair of sentences, we have "femina" for a subject and "feminam" for

object. The form used for the direct object ("him", "virum", "feminam") is known as the "accusative case", while theform used for the subject ("he", "vir", "femina") is known as the nominative case.

Just as with pronouns nouns, many inflected languages make distinctions between cases for adjectives and (for

languages that have them) articles. Thus in German, "the car" as the subject of a sentence may be expressed as der

Wagen. This is the form in the nominative case. If this article/noun pair is used as the object of a verb, becomes den

Wagen, the accusative. In this example, the noun does not change, but the definite article is derin the nominative but

den in the accusative case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nominative_casehttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_9/%EE%BF%80http://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_9/%EE%BF%80http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russian_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ancient_Greekhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Latinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anglicisationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=English_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Declension_in_Englishhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oblique_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dative_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Declensionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=English_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Telicityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Morphosyntactic_alignmenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Partitive_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Finnic_languageshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Classical_Arabichttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Semitic_languageshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Altaic_languageshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Altaic_languageshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Uralic_languageshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ukrainian_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russian_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Romanian_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Swedish_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Polish_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Greek_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sanskrithttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Latinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indo-European_languageshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Proto-Indo-European_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indirect_objecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nominative_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Latinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Prepositionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Transitive_verbhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Transitive_verbhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Direct_objecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grammatical_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nounhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_glossing_abbreviations


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Accusative case 2

Examples

Indo-European languages

Latin

In Latin, nouns, adjectives, or pronouns in the accusative case (accusativus) can be used

as a direct object.

to indicate duration of time. E.g., multos annos, "for many years"; ducentos annos, "for 200 years." This is known

as the accusative of duration of time.

to indicate direction towards which. E.g. domum, "homewards";Romam, "to Rome" with no preposition needed.

This is known as the accusative of place to which, and is equivalent to the lative case found in some other

languages.

as the subject of an indirect statement (e.g.Dixitmefuisse saevum, "He said that I had been cruel;" in later Latin

works, such as the Vulgate, such a construction is replaced by quodand a regularly structured sentence, having

the subject in the nominative: e.g.,Dixit quodegofueram saevus).

with case-specific prepositions such as "per" (through), "ad" (to/toward), and "trans" (across). in exclamations, such as me miseram, "wretched me" (spoken by Circe to Ulysses in Ovid'sRemedium Amoris;

note that this is feminine: the masculine form would be me miserum).

For the accusative endings, see Latin declension.

German

German uses the accusative to mark direct objects and objects of certain prepositions, or adverbs relating to time.

The accusative is marked for masculine articles, pronouns, and adjectives.

German articles

The masculine forms for German articles, e.g., 'the', 'a/an', 'my', etc., change in the accusative case: they always endin -en. The feminine, neutral and plural forms do not change.

Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural

Definite article (the) den die das die

Indefinite article (a/an) einen eine ein

For example, "Hund" (dog) is a masculine (der) word, so the article changes when used in the accusative case:

Ich habe einen Hund. (lit., I have a dog.) In the sentence "a dog" is in the accusative case as it is the second idea

(the object) of the sentence.

German pronouns

Some German pronouns also change in the accusative case.

German prepositions

The accusative case is also used after particular German prepositions. These include bis, durch, fr, gegen, ohne, um,

after which the accusative case is always used, and an, auf, hinter, in, neben, ber, unter, vor, zwischen which can

govern either the accusative or the dative. The latter prepositions take the accusative when motion or action is

specified (being done into/onto the space), but take the dative when location is specified (being done in/on that

space). These prepositions are also used in conjunction with certain verbs, in which case it is the verb in question

which governs whether the accusative or dative should be used.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German_pronounshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Object_%28grammar%29http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German_articleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adjectivehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pronounhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Article_%28grammar%29http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adverbhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Preposition_and_postpositionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Latin_declensionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ovidhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Odysseushttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Circehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vulgatehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indirect_statementhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lative_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Object_%28grammar%29


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Accusative case 3

German adjectives

Adjective endings also change in the accusative case. Another factor that determines the endings of adjectives is

whether the adjective is being used after a definite article (the), after an indefinite article (a/an) or without any article

before the adjective (many green apples).

Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural

Definite article -en -e -e -en

Indefinite Article -en -e -es -en

No article -en -e -es -e

German adverbial use

In German, the accusative case is also used for some adverbial expressions, mostly temporal ones, as in "Diesen

Abend bleibe ich daheim" (This evening I'm staying at home), where "diesen Abend" is marked as accusative,

although not a direct object.

Russian

In Russian, accusative is used not only to display the direct object of an action, but also to indicate the destination or

goal of motion. It is also used with some prepositions. The prepositions and can both take accusative in

situations where they are indicating the goal of a motion.

In the masculine, Russian also distinguishes between animate and inanimate nouns with regard to the accusative;

only the animates carry a marker in this case.

In fact Russian almost lost the real PIE accusative case, since only singular feminine nouns ending in 'a' have a

distinct form. Other words use the genitive case or the nominative case in place of the accusative, depending on their

animacy.

Armenian

While the Armenian dialects both have a de facto accusative case, Eastern Armenian uses an accusative marker for

transitive verbs[7]

Example:

- girkh - book (Nominative)

- usuchih - teacher (Nominative)

:

Aram verchrech girkh

Aram took the book. :

Aram sirum ir usuchihin

Aram loves his teacher.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=De_factohttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Armenian_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Animacyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marker_%28linguistics%29http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Animacyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grammatical_gender


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Accusative case 4

Constructed languages

Esperanto

Esperanto grammar involves only two cases, a nominative and an accusative. The accusative is formed by the

addition of-n to the nominative form, and is the case used for direct objects. Other case functions, including dative

functions, are achieved with prepositions, all of which normally take the nominative case. Direction of motion can be

expressed either by the accusative case, or by the preposition al (to) with the nominative.

Ido

In Ido the -n suffix is optional, as subjectverbobject order is assumed when it is not present. Note that this is

sometimes done in Esperanto, especially by beginners, but it is considered incorrect while in Ido it is the norm.

Uralic languages

Finnish

According to traditional Finnish grammars, the accusative is the case of a total object, while the case of a partial

object is the partitive. The accusative is identical either to the nominative or the genitive, except for personal

pronouns and the personal interrogative pronoun kuka/ken, which have a special accusative form ending in -t, kenet.

The major new Finnish grammar, Iso suomen kielioppi, breaks with the traditional classification to limit the

accusative case to the special case of the personal pronouns and kuka/ken. The new grammar considers other total

objects as being in the nominative or genitive case.

Hungarian

The accusative case in Hungarian applies to nouns, pronouns; even to adjectives and numerals when either of them

stands alone in the sense of direct object.

Accusative is formed by the suffix -t. In many cases, -t is preceded by a suffix-initial vowel, primarily based onspecific vowel harmony, resulting in -at, -et, -ot, or -t. The rules are complex, also involve consonants, and have

exceptions. Thus: kertet(garden), kket(blue); falat(wall), hatot (six); polcot(shelf), nyolcat (eight); kdt(fog),

knyvet (book).

In fewer cases, the root of the word is also affected. Word endings -a or -e will (even if they are the endings of a

preceding suffix) change to - and -, respectively, before -t. E.g.: fa (tree) -> ft. The long vowel of a one-syllable

word may get shortened. E.g.: r (lord) -> urat. But: br (Boer) -> brt. If a word has more than one syllable and the

last syllable ends in a consonant, the vowel of the last syllable may drop. E.g.: krm (fingernail) -> krmt. But:

krm (my circle) -> krmet. Notably, the first-person and second-person personal pronouns have quite unique

accusative forms (indeed, as indicated in the table, in the singular case the ending -et is rather optional, even

considered archaic).
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vowel_harmonyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Iso_suomen_kielioppihttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Interrogative_pronounhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Personal_pronounhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Personal_pronounhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Genitive_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nominative_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Partitive_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Subject%E2%80%93verb%E2%80%93objecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Idohttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Esperanto_grammar


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Accusative case 5

Nominative Accusative

first-person singular (I) n engem(et)

second-person singular (you) te tged(et)

third-person singular (he/she/it) t

first-person plural (we) mi minket

second-person plural (you) ti titeket

third-person plural (they) k ket

Semitic languages

Accusative case marking existed in Proto-Semitic, Akkadian, and Ugaritic. It is preserved today only in literary

Arabic and Ge'ez.

Akkadian

Nominative: awlum (a/the man)

Accusative: apaqqid awlam (I trust a/the man)

Classical Arabic

In Arabic, the accusative case (also the subjunctive mood) is called an-nab, and a word in the accusative case

(also a verb in the subjunctive) is called al-manb, both from the verb naaba "set up". The accusative

is used to mark the object of a verb and to form adverbs.

Nominative: rajulun "a man", ar-rajulu "the man"

Accusative: as'alu rajulan "I ask a man", as'alu ar-rajula "I ask the man"

Notes

[1] Oxford University Press. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed..Oxford, 1989

[2] accstvus (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=accusativus). Charlton T. Lewis and

Charles Short.A Latin Dictionary on Perseus Project.

[3] [[Category:Articles containing Ancient Greek language text (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.

04.0057:entry=ai)tiatikh/)]]. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert;A GreekEnglish Lexicon at Perseus Project

[4] "accusative" (http://oed.com/search?searchType=dictionary&q=accusative). Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.

2001. .

[5] Harper, Douglas. "accusative" (http://www.etymonline.com/index. php?term=accusative). Online Etymology Dictionary. .

[6] Herbert Weir Smyth. A Greek grammar for colleges. p. 353, sect. 1551.a.: name of the accusative.

[7] http:/

/

www.

armeniapedia.

org/

index.

php?title=Armenian_Language_Lessons_Chapter_2#Accusative_case

External links

Russian Accusative: (http://www.russianlessons.net/grammar/nouns_accusative.php), (http://www.

russian-plus.com/Cases/accusative-case.html), (http://www.russian-resources.info/links.aspx/grammar/

nouns/acc), (http://www.learnrussian.net/learn-russian-accusative-case.html)

German Accusative Case (http://www.deutsched.com/Grammar/Lessons/0203accusative.php) Grammar

lesson covering the accusative case in the German language

Arabic case endings (http://arabic.tripod.com/CaseSigns.htm)
http://arabic.tripod.com/CaseSigns.htmhttp://www.deutsched.com/Grammar/Lessons/0203accusative.phphttp://www.learnrussian.net/learn-russian-accusative-case.htmlhttp://www.russian-resources.info/links.aspx/grammar/nouns/acchttp://www.russian-resources.info/links.aspx/grammar/nouns/acchttp://www.russian-plus.com/Cases/accusative-case.htmlhttp://www.russian-plus.com/Cases/accusative-case.htmlhttp://www.russianlessons.net/grammar/nouns_accusative.phphttp://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Armenian_Language_Lessons_Chapter_2#Accusative_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Herbert_Weir_Smythhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Online_Etymology_Dictionaryhttp://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=accusativehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oxford_English_Dictionaryhttp://oed.com/search?searchType=dictionary&q=accusativehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Perseus_Projecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=A_Greek%E2%80%93English_Lexiconhttp://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=ai)tiatikh/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=ai)tiatikh/http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Perseus_Projecthttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=A_Latin_Dictionaryhttp://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0059:entry=accusativushttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ge%27ezhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Literary_Arabichttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Literary_Arabichttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ugaritichttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Akkadian_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Proto-Semitic


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Article Sources and Contributors 6

Article Sources and ContributorsAccusative case Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=527416069 Contributors: 208.168.16.xxx, Ajd, Amire80, Amrboghdady, Andrea.gf, Andresj, Ante Aikio, Axeman89,

Ayrenz, Belovedfreak, Binadot, Branddobbe, Brandmeister (old), Brockert, Bryan Derksen, Caeruleancentaur, Cataclysm, CatherineMunro, Chris Weimer, Chrisbbehrens, Conversion script,

Courcelles, Cuaxdon, D'Agosta, DTOx, David Newton, Deor, Djmutex, Doradus, Dpc01, Dpv, Drmaik, Eatcacti, Edhel, Erutuon, Fantastic fred, Fraser24, Frietjes, Fsojic, Gadykozma, Garik,

Gilliam, Green caterpillar, HD86, Hakeem.gadi, Hamedvahid, Hashar, HenryLi, Hippopha, Hux, Iggy8700, IstvanWolf, J04n, JamesBWatson, John Price, Jumbuck, Kalidasa 777,

KaraiBorinquen, KingKane, Koavf, Kotabatubara, Kwamikagami, Kwertii, Leopea, Leptictidium, Lerdthenerd, Livajo, Magnus Bakken, Mahmudmasri, Malcolmxl5, Martinboy, Mav, Millosh,

Mindmatrix, Mircealungu, Mitrius, Mona Williams, Mormegil, N-true, Nihil novi, Noclevername, Noldoaran, Olivier, PGWG, Pablo-flores, Paxsimius, Pde, Philip Truema n, PierreAbbat,

Pithecanthropus, Poccil, Providus, Ptcamn, Rallette, Raoul NK, Rich Farmbrough, Rocastelo, Rockpickle85, RoseParks, Samuel, Santeri, Sardanaphalus, Sundar, Sverdrup, TShilo12,TarisWerewolf, Template namespace initialisation script, The bellman, Timwi, Typhlosion, Vuo, Vystrix Nexoth, Woohookitty, Xaverius, Yidisheryid, , 119 anonymous edits

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