Ingrammar, theinstrumental case (abbreviatedINS orINSTR) is agrammatical case used to indicate that a noun is theinstrument or means by or with which thesubject achieves or accomplishes an action. The noun may be either a physical object or an abstract concept.
The instrumental case appears in thisRussian sentence:
Я
Ya
I
написал
napisal
wrote
письмо
pis'mo
(the) letter
пером.
perom.
[with] (a) quill pen.
Я написал письмо пером.
Ya napisal pis'mo perom.
I wrote {(the) letter} {[with] (a) quill pen.}
Here, theinflection of the noun indicates its instrumental role: thenominativeперо changes its ending to becomeпером.
Modern English expresses the instrumental meaning by use of adverbial phrases that begin with the wordswith,by, orusing, followed by the noun indicating theinstrument:
I wrote the note with a pen.
I wrote the note (by) using a pen.
Technical descriptions often use the phrase "by means of", which is similar to "by use of", as in:
I wrote the note by means of a pen.
I wrote the note by use of a pen.
This can be replaced by "via", which is a Latinablative of the nominative (viā)via, meaning road, route, or way. In the ablative it meansby way of.
The instrumental case is notably used in Russian, where the case is calledтворительный падеж (tvoritel'nyj padež) though similar usages also can be found in otherBalto-Slavic languages. In most declension paradigms, the instrumental case in Russian can generally be distinguished by the -ом ("-om") suffix for most masculine and neuter nouns, the -ою/-oй ("-oju"/"-oj") suffix for most feminine nouns and -ами ("-ami") for any of the three genders in the plural.
Just as in English the preposition "with" can express instrumental ("using, by means of"), comitative ("in the company of"), and a number of other semantic relations, the instrumental case in Russian is not limited to its instrumental thematic role. It is also used to denote:
the agent in a passive voice construction. E.g.: "Книга написана Марком Твеном" ("The book was written by Mark Twain"). Here, "Марком Твеном" ("by Mark Twain") is "Марк Твен" ("Mark Twain") in the instrumental case.
a predicate with infinitive, future tense, imperative, conditional and gerund of the verbs "быть" and "являться" (both meaning 'to be') (for example, "я хочу быть врачом", "не будь трусом" translate as "I want to be a doctor" and "don't be a coward", with the nouns in the instrumental case).
a predicate with a number of other verbs, denoting state, appearance, manner, consideration, etc.
parts of the day, seasons of the year, and some other temporal relations. For example, the sentence "я работаю утром" (ja rabotaju utrom) means "I work in the morning". The word утро (utro, "morning") in its instrumental case denotes the time in which the action (in the case of this example, "working") takes place ("in the morning").
similarity. For example, the phrases "выть волком," "умереть героем," "лететь стрелой" (to howl like a wolf, to die like a hero, to fly like an arrow) use nouns in the instrumental case.
location, when used with prepositions "behind", "in front of", "under", "above", "next to", and "between"
The Russian instrumental case is also used with verbs of use and control (to own, to manage, to abuse, to rule, to possess, etc.), attitude (to be proud of, to threaten (with), to value, to be interested (in), to admire, to be obsessed (with), etc.), reciprocal action (to share, to exchange), and some other verbs.
Though the instrumental case does not exist in many languages, some languages use other cases to denote the means, or instrument, of an action. InClassical Greek, for example, thedative case is used as the instrumental case. This can be seen in the sentence "..με κτείνει δόλῳ," or "..me ktenei dolôi" (Book IX, line 407 of theOdyssey), which means "he kills me with a bait". Here, "δόλῳ," the dative of "δόλος" ("dolos" – a bait) is used as the instrumental case (the means or instrument here is, obviously, the bait). In Latin the instrumental case has merged with theablative, thus the ablative case has the same functions. For example,ipso facto can be translated as "by the fact itself", whileoculīs vidēre means "to see with one's eyes".
In ModernEnglish, the wordwhy is one instance of an etymologically instrumentaldeclension. Though not commonly known to be ofpronominal origin, it was, in fact, inherited fromOld Englishhwȳ, which was the declension ofhwæt (nowwhat) in the Old English instrumental case – a grammatical feature rare even in Old English. The modern instrumental case (as present inwhy) does not bear the meaning of instrument, but of purpose, cause, or reason: rather, the closely related formhow is used to express instrument, way, or means. In phrases such as "The more, the merrier", the wordthe derives from the instrumental case of the demonstrative pronoun related to the modern English wordthat.[1]
It can be used to indicate someone or something accompanying an action. In this case, the sense of "company" is indicated by postpositions like सहsaha ("with") (may be optionally omitted):
दासेन
Dāsena
सह
saha
देवदत्तोऽगच्छत्।
devadatto'gacchat.
दासेन सह देवदत्तोऽगच्छत्।
Dāsenasaha devadatto'gacchat.
"Devadatta wentaccompanied by the servant."
It can indicate the agent of a passive verb:
देवदत्तेन
Devadattena
यवं
yavaṁ
खाद्यते।
khādyate.
देवदत्तेन यवं खाद्यते।
Devadattena yavaṁ khādyate.
"Barley is eatenby Devadatta."
It can indicate the cause, reason or circumstance of an action. In this case, it can be translated as "because of", "out of", etc.:
दुःखेन
duḥkhena
ग्रामम्
grāmam
अत्यजत्।
atyajat.
दुःखेन ग्रामम् अत्यजत्।
duḥkhena grāmam atyajat.
"He abandoned the villageout of misery."
It is used with the preposition विनाvinā ("without"):
जलेन
jalena
विना
vinā
पद्मं
padmaṁ
नश्यति।
naśyati.
जलेन विना पद्मं नश्यति।
jalenavinā padmaṁ naśyati.
"A lotus dieswithout water."
It can also be used with the particles अलम्alam and कृतम्kṛtam, both meaning "enough".
The functions of theProto-Indo-European instrumental case were taken over by thedative, so that the Greek dative has functions belonging to the Proto-Indo-European dative, instrumental, andlocative.[4] This is the case with the bare dative, and the dative with the prepositionσύνsýn "with". It is possible, however, that Mycenean Greek had the instrumental case, which was later replaced by dative in all theGreek dialects.[5]
Common Germanic inherited the Indo-European instrumental case, but in nouns, the case was almost entirely lost inGothic,Old Norse andOld Frisian, which indicated the instrumental case with the dative inflection in all but a few relic forms.[2]: §7.3 EarlyOld High German andOld Saxon nouns do exhibit an instrumental case, for example Old High Germanwortu 'word' and Old Saxonhoƀu 'court', where the -u ending derives from a Proto-Indo-European instrumental inflection *-ō.[2]: §7.8 In adjectives, no instrumental plural inflection can be reconstructed for Common Germanic, but the earlyWest Germanic dialects did retain a distinctive instrumental singular strong adjective ending.[2]: §9.2 Similarly, in demonstrative and interrogative pronouns, there is no evidence for distinctive instrumental plural inflections, but the West Germanic dialects and, less often, Old Norse and Gothic, retained distinctive instrumental singular forms.[2]: §8.10-13
The instrumental case is found in certain usages inOld English. It has left a legacy in Modern English, in the words "why" and "thus": 'why' is fromhwy, the instrumental case of 'hwa / hwæt' (who / what) and 'thus' apparently fromþys, the instrumental case of 'þes / þis' (this).
Adjectives and the demonstrative and interrogative pronouns all have instrumental forms. Adverbs are commonly formed in Old English by adding-e to the adjective, which is the adjective's instrumental case.[6]
In Old English, the instrumental case denotes means or manner, in such phrases as "oþre naman Iulius" ('by other name called Julius') or expressions of time: "þy ilcan dæge"; 'on the same day'.[6] (In these examples, the whole expression is in the instrumental case, but only theoþre orþy is distinctive in form from the dative.)
In nouns, the Old German instrumental was replaced with the dative inMiddle High German, comparable with English and Ancient Greek, with a construction ofmit (with) + dative clause (in English, the objective case is used). For example:
"Hans schriebmit einem Stifte*." (John [nominative] wrote with a [dative] pencil [dative].)
*the German dative -e is not used in most common conversation; it is only used here for a better demonstration.
ein = a, nominative case masculine/neuter → einem = a, dative case masculine/neuter
The instrumental inArmenian is denoted by the -ով (-ov) suffix to say that an action is done by, with or through an agent.
մատիտ (matit, pencil) → մատիտով (matitov, with/by a pencil)
մատիտով գրիր (matitov grir) Write with a pencil.
While the instrumental case is the form most commonly used for this purpose, when coupled with thepassive voice in Armenian the instrumental case can be replaced with theablative case.
Instrumental in theSerbo-Croatian language group is usually used to denote a noun with which the action is done, e.g. "Idemautom" - "I'm going by means of a car", "Jedemvilicom/viljuškom" - "I eat with a fork", "Prenosi sezrakom/vazduhom" - "It's transferred through air", "Prožeta jebijesom" - "She's consumed by anger". The instrumental preposition "s(a)", meaning "with", is supposed to be dropped in this usage, but it is often kept in casual speech when talking about objects in use, such as a pen, a hammer, etc.
Instrumental can also denote company, in which case "s(a)" is mandatory, e.g. "Pričali smosa svima" - "We talked with everyone", "Došao jes roditeljima" - "He came with his parents", "Šetala sesa psom" - "She was taking a walk with her dog". Dropping "s(a)" in this case would either make the sentences incorrect, or change their meaning entirely because dative, locative and instrumental share the same form in the plural, so the examples "Pričali smosvima" i "Došao jeroditeljima" would come to mean "We told everyone" and "He came to his parents".
Instrumental is also used with certain spatial prepositions like "među" (between), "nad" (above), "pod" (underneath), "pred" (in front of) and "za" (after). Note the difference between these prepositions and similar ones used for genitive with an -i suffix: "između", "iznad", "ispod", "ispred" and "iza".
Instrumental is used without proposition to denote travelling through an area: "Putujemzemljom" - "I'm travelling the country", "Hodamplažom" - "I'm walking along a beach", etc.
It can also be used to show how long or when in a larger scope of time something happened: "Nema ihgodinama" - "They haven't come in years", "S vremenom će proći" - "It will pass in time", "Jednomtjednom" - "Once a week", etc.
The instrumental case is present in theHungarian language, where it serves several purposes. The main purpose is the same as the above, i.e. the means with which an action occurs. It has a role in the-(t)at-causative form of verbs, that is, the form of a verb that shows the subject caused someone else to action the verb. In this sense, the instrumental case is used to mark the person that was caused to execute the action expressed by the verb. It is also used to quantify or qualify words such as 'better' or 'ago', such assokkal jobban 'much better' (literally 'with-much better');hét évvel ezelőtt 'seven years ago' (literally 'seven with-years before this').
Finnish has a historic, marginalinstructive case (-n), but in practice theadessive case (-lla/-llä) is used instead outside lexicalised fixed expressions, even though the adessive literally means 'on top', e.g.vasaralla 'using a hammer' (instrumental meaning) or 'on a hammer' (locative meaning). (Vasaroin 'using hammers' is plausible and understandable, but not common in use.)
Nahuatl uses the suffix-tica to indicate the instrumental case.For example, in the sentenceātlān ācaltica in huāllahqueh 'they came on the water by boat',ācalli means 'boat' andācaltica means 'by (use of a) boat'.
Turkish uses the conjunctionile ("with"), and its suffixed form-(y)lA (realised as-(y)la or-(y)le, depending on the dominant vowel of the noun—seevowel harmony) to indicate the instrumental case. For example, in the sentenceArabayla geldi 'he came by (the use of a) car',araba means 'car' andarabayla means 'by (the use of a) car, with a car'.
The originalProto-Turkic instrumental case suffix was-n, which is lessproductive today but is preserved in common words likeyazın ("during the summer"),kışın ("during the winter"),öğlen ("at noon"), andyayan ("by foot", "on foot"). It became less productive in mostOghuz Turkic languages. The conjunctionile ("with") in Turkish has semantically expanded to fill the gap (kürek ile orkürekle, meaning "with the shovel" > "using the shovel"), being used as an instrumental marker, and the suffix-(y)lA (-le,-la,-yle,-yla) is a form ofile which has been grammaticalized into an agglutinative suffix as a result of quick speech, becoming anenclitic.
The instrumental in theVainakh languages of theNorth Caucasus, comprisingChechen andIngush, is denoted by the -ца / -аца / -ица (-tsa / -atsa / -itsa) suffix to describe an action which is done with an object:
Аса
Asa
"I
Бахьамица
Bahamitsa
with (a) quill pen
Кехатт
Kekhatt
(the) letter
йазздир.
yazzdir.
wrote.
Аса Бахьамица Кехатт йазздир.
Asa Bahamitsa Kekhatt yazzdir.
"I {with (a) quill pen} {(the) letter} wrote.
ThenominativeBaham changes its ending to becomeBahamitsa:
Бахьам = pen → Бахьамица =with a pen
Бахьамица йазздир (bahamitsa yazzdir) Wrote with a pen.
^abcdeR. D. Fulk,A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages, Studies in Germanic Linguistics, 3 (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2018),doi:10.1075/sigl.3.
^DESHPANDE, Madhav; "Samskrita-Subodhini", 2007. Michigan Papers on South and Southwest Asia, No. 47. CENTERS FOR SOUTH AND SOUTHWEST ASIAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.ISBN0-89148-079-X.
^Andrew Garett, "Convergence in the formation of Indo-European subgroups: Phylogeny and chronology", in Phylogenetic methods and the prehistory of languages, ed. Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research), 2006, p. 140, citing Ivo Hajnal, Studien zum mykenischen Kasussystem. Berlin, 1995, with the proviso that "the Mycenaean case system is still controversial in part".
