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.
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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 |
| Inessive case | inside something | inside the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian |
| Locative case | location | at/on/in the house | Belarusian | Czech | Hungarian (only for some traditional town names) | Inari Sami | Latvian | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Polish | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovakian | Turkish |
| Temporal case | (used only with time expressions) specifying a time | at seven | Hungarian |
| Superessive case | on the surface | on (top of) the house | Hungarian |
Motion
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ablative case | movement away from something | away from the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Inuktitut | Sanskrit | Turkish |
| 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 | 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 |
| Illative case | movement into something | into the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Inari Sami | Lithuanian | Northern Sami |
| Lative case | motion to location | to/into the house | Erzya | Finnish | Turkish |
| Prolative case | movement using a surface or way | by way of/through the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish |
| Prosecutive case | across or along | along the road | Kalaallisut |
| Sublative case | movement onto the surface | on(to) the house | Hungarian |
| Terminative case | marking the end of a movement or time | as far as the house | Estonian | Hungarian |
| 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 | nominative-absolutive 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 | Czech | Erzya | Esperanto | Finnish | German | Hungarian | Inari Sami | Latin | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Polish | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovakian |
| 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 | Georgian | Samoan |
| Ergative-genitive case | agent, possession | he pushed the door and it opened; her dog | Inuktitut |
| Instrumental/Instructive case | instrument | by means of the house | Belarusian | Czech | Finnish | Georgian | Lithuanian | Polish | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovakian |
| Instrumental-comitative case | instrument, in company of something | with the house | Hungarian |
| 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 | 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 |
| Oblique case | all-round case; any situation except nominative | concerning the house | Hindi |
| 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 |
| Causal case | because, because of | because of the house | Quechua |
| 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 |
| Dative case | shows direction or receiver | for/to the house | Belarusian | Czech | Erzya | Georgian | German | Hindi | Hungarian | Inuktitut | Latin | Lithuanian | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovakian |
| Dedative case (Respective) | related to | related to the house | Quenya |
| Distributive case | distribution by piece | per house | Finnish | Hungarian |
| Distributive-temporal case | how often something happens | daily; on Sundays | Hungarian |
| Genitive case | shows relationship, possession | of the house | Belarusian | Czech | Dutch | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Georgian | German | Greek | Inari Sami | Latin | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovakian | Swedish |
| Possessive case | direct possession of something | owned by the house | English | Quenya |
| Sociative case | along with something, together with something | with the house | Hungarian |
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 |
| Prepositional case | when a preposition precedes the noun | in/on/by/with the house | Russian |
| Vocative case | used for addressing someone, with or without a preposition | Hey, house! O house! House! | Arabic | Belarusian (rare) | Czech | Georgian | Greek | Hindi | Latin | Lithuanian | Polish | Romanian | Sanskrit | Serbian |
State
| Case | Usage | Example | Found in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abessive case | the lack of something | without the house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami |
| Essive case | temporary state of being | as the house | Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami | Inuktitut | Middle Egyptian | Northern Sami |
| Essive-formal case | marking a condition as a quality | as a house | Hungarian |
| 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 |
| Translative case | change of a condition into another | (becoming) into a house | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian |
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