Old
English had five cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative,
and instrumental.
Modern
English has three cases:
1.
Nominative (also called subjective)
2. Accusative (also called objective)
3. Genitive (also called possessive)
The
objective case subsumes the old dative and instrumental cases.
Case refers to the relation that one word
has to another in a sentence, i.e., where one word “falls” in relationship to
another. The word comes from a Latin word meaning “falling, fall.” In other
modern languages, adjectives have case, but in English, case applies only to
nouns and pronouns.
Nominative/Subjective
Case
When a noun is used as a) the subject of a verb or b) the complement of a being
verb, it is said to be in the subjective or nominative case.
The
king laughed heartily.
King is a noun in the subjective case because it is the subject of the
verb laughed.
The
king is the son of Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Son is a noun in the subjective case because it is the complement of the
being verb is.
Accusative/Objective
Case (This isn't accusing
anyone of anything)
When a noun is used as the object of a verb or the object of a preposition, it
is said to be in the objective or accusative case.
The
king subdued his enemies.
Enemies is a noun in the objective case because it receives the action
of the transitive verb subdued; it is the direct object of subdued.
The
friends went to a movie.
Movie is a noun in the objective case because it is the object of the
preposition to.
Sallie
wrote Charlie a letter.
Charlie is a noun in the objective case because it is the indirect
object of the verb wrote.
A
transitive verb always has a direct object; sometimes, it will have a second
object called the “indirect object.” In the old terminology, the indirect
object was said to be in the “dative case.” Nowadays, the indirect object, like
the direct object, is said to be in the accusative or objective case
Note:
Some English teachers may still distinguish (as I once did) between the
accusative and the dative, but the most recent college English textbook I have,
(copyright 2000), does not even list the term “dative” in its index. As nouns
and pronouns in the dative case are spelled the same as those in the objective
case, there’s no practical reason to retain the former designation.
Genitive/Possessive
Case
Of
the three noun cases, only the possessive case is inflected (changes the way it
is spelled).
Nouns
in the possessive case are inflected by the addition of an apostrophe–with or
without adding an “s.”
The
boy’s shoe is untied.
Boy’s is a singular noun in the possessive case.
The
boys’ shoes are untied.
Boys’ is a plural noun in the possessive case.
This
one inflected noun case is the source of error for a great many native English
speakers.
English
pronouns are also a frequent source of error because they retain inflected
forms to show subjective and objective case:
Pronouns
in the subjective case: I, he, she, we, they, who
Pronouns in the objective case: me, him, her, us, them, whom
The
pronouns you and it have the same form in both subjective and
objective case.
Note:
Strictly speaking, both my and mine and the other possessive
forms are genitive pronoun forms, but students who have been taught that
pronouns stand for nouns are spared unnecessary confusion when the
teacher reserves the term “possessive pronoun” for words that actually do stand
for nouns, like mine and theirs. Like adjectives, my, its,
our, etc. stand in front of nouns, so it makes sense to call them
“possessive adjectives.”
The
objective form whom is almost gone from modern speech; the subjective
form who has taken over in the objective case for many speakers.
From:
Daily Writing Tips
