In theEnglish language, the only words that occur in the accusative case arepronouns: "me", "him", "her", "us", "whom", and "them". For example, the pronounshe, as the subject of aclause, is in the nominative case ("She wrote a book"); but if the pronoun is instead the object of the verb, it is in the accusative case andshe becomesher ("Fred greeted her").[1] For compound direct objects, it would be, e.g., "Fred invited me and her to the party".
The accusative case is used in many languages for the objects of (some or all)prepositions. It is usually combined with thenominative case (for example inLatin).
The English term, "accusative", derives from the Latinaccusativus, which, in turn, is a translation of the Greekαἰτιατική. The word can also mean "causative", and that might have derived from the Greeks,[2] but the sense of the Roman translation has endured and is used in some other modern languages as the grammatical term for this case, for example in Russian (винительный).
Modern English almost entirely lacksdeclension in its nouns; pronouns, however, have an understood case usage, as inthem,her,him andwhom, which merges the accusative anddative functions, and originates in old Germanic dative forms (seeDeclension in English).
In the sentenceThe man seesthe dog,the dog is the direct object of the verb "to see". InEnglish, which has mostly lost grammatical cases, the definite article and noun – "the dog" – remain the same noun form without number agreement in the noun either as subject or object, though an artifact of it is in the verb and has number agreement, which changes to "sees". One can also correctly use "the dog" as the subject of a sentence: "The dog sees the cat."
In a declined language, themorphology of the article or noun changes with gender agreement. For example, inGerman, "the dog" isder Hund. This is the form in thenominative case, used for the subject of a sentence. If this article/noun pair is used as the object of a verb, it (usually) changes to the accusative case, which entails an article shift in German –Der Mann siehtden Hund (The man sees the dog). In German, masculine nouns change their definite article fromder toden in the accusative case.InNepali, "Rama sees Shyama" would be translated asरामले श्यामलाई देख्छ।Rama-le Shyama-lai dekhchha. The same sentence inSanskrit would beरामः पश्यति श्यामम्।Rama: pashyati Shyamam.
The accusative case inLatin has minor differences from the accusative case inProto-Indo-European. Nouns in the accusative case (accusativus) can be used:
to qualify duration of time, e.g.,multos annos, "for many years";ducentos annos, "for 200 years"; this is known as theaccusative of duration of time,
to qualify direction towards which e.g.,domum, "homewards";Romam, "to Rome" with no preposition needed; this is known as theaccusative of place to which, and is equivalent to thelative case found in some other languages.
as the subject of anindirect statement with the verb as an infinitive, (e.g.Dixitme esse saevum, "He said thatI had been cruel"; in later Latin works, such as theVulgate, such a phrasing is replaced byquod and a regularly ordered sentence, having the subject in the nominative and the verb in the indicative mood, e.g.,Dixit quodego fueram saevus).
with case-specific prepositions such asper (through),ad (to/toward), andtrans (across);
in exclamations, such asme miseram, "wretched me" (spoken byCirce toUlysses inOvid'sRemedium Amoris);
to qualify purpose, e.g.,ad proficiscendum, "for the purpose of departing";ad effēminandōs animōs, "for the purpose of weakening [or, effeminating] the spirit".
The accusative case is used for the direct object in a sentence. The masculine forms forGerman articles, e.g., "the", "a/an", "my", etc., change in the accusative case: they always end in -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.
The accusative case is also used after particular German prepositions. These includebis,durch,für,gegen,ohne,um, after which the accusative case is always used, andan,auf,hinter,in,neben,über,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.
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
-es
No article
-e
In German, the accusative case is also used for some adverbial expressions, mostly temporal ones, as inDiesen Abend bleibe ich daheim (This evening I'm staying at home), wherediesen Abend is marked as accusative, although not a direct object.
InRussian, 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 prepositionsв andна can both take accusative in situations where they are indicating the goal of a motion.
In themasculine, Russian also distinguishes betweenanimate and inanimate nouns with regard to the accusative; only the animates carry amarker in this case.
The PIE accusative case has nearly eroded in Russian, merging with the genitive or the nominative in most declensions. Only singular first-declension nouns (ending in 'а', 'я', or 'ия') have a distinct accusative ('у', 'ю', or 'ию').
The direct object function of the accusative case in Polish is often used with verbs likemieć'to have',jeść'to eat',pić'to drink',czytać'to read' andlubić'to like'. For example:
Czytam książkę ('I am reading a book')
Mam brata ('I have a brother')
Jem obiad ('I am eating dinner')
Jem hot-doga ('I am eating a hot dog')
Piję piwo ('I am drinking beer')
Lubię czekoladę ('I like chocolate')
The motion function of the accusative case is used with the prepositionsna,o,po,pod,przez(e),w(e), andza.
The constructionna + accusative is used when referring to motion to:
According to the traditionalFinnish grammar, the accusative case is used for a total object, while thepartitive case is used for a partial object. The accusative is identical to either the nominative case or thegenitive case, except forpersonal pronouns and the personalinterrogative pronounkuka/ken, which have a special accusative form ending in-t.
The major new Finnish grammar,Iso suomen kielioppi, deviates from the traditional classification to limit the accusative case to the special case of personal pronouns andkuka/ken. This grammar considers other total objects as being in the nominative or genitive case.
The accusative case is assigned to the direct object in a sentence in Hungarian. The accusative marker is always-t, often preceded by a linking vowel to facilitate pronunciation.
For the Hungarian 1st and 2nd person singular accusative forms, the pronoun can often be dropped if it is clear from the context who the speaker is referring to.
In Hebrew, if the object of the sentence is a pronoun (e.g., I, you, s/he) and the transitive verb requires a direct object, the wordאֵתet is combined with the pronoun into an object pronoun.The combined words are:
InTurkish, cases are marked withsuffixes. The accusative case is marked with the suffixes-ı, -i, -u, -ü, depending onvowel harmony. If a word ends in a vowel,-y- is added before the suffix as abuffer consonant.
The accusative is only used if the direct object of a sentence isdefinite. If it is indefinite, thenominative case is used. For example:
InMalayalam, the accusative inflection is achieved using the suffixഎ /-e/. Example:രാമൻ /raman/ →രാമനെ /ramane/. The sandhi also play a role here depending on the ending of the noun. Example:മരം /maram/ →മരത്തെ /maratte/ where /tt/ replaces /m/ when /e/ is suffixed.
