The Case System: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative All languages have ways of showing what role cach notin ix playing in a particular acntence, for example who (or what) i doing what to whom. In English, we how this mainly by the position of the noun in the sentence. German speakers, on the ather hand, show the sale of 42 noun mainly by adding endings co any determiners of adjectives which accompany the oun (and sometimes tothe notin ice). When they arc used in a sentence, sonns have one of four cases, depending on thee role ix the sentence: nominative (subject), accusative (direct object). genitive (genitive object) and dative (indirect object). In this cours: you will only necd to use the nominative, accustive, and dative; the genitive sles frequently used, but we have included it in this grammar cecion fr the ake of completeness ‘As we suid above, the cam af'a noun is signaled by the endings of any articles andlor adjectives that are used with it. Here are some exemples, using only maculine nouns: Der Hind beife den Mern, ‘The dog bites the man. ‘nominative accusative De Mann, beitt en Hund “The man bites the Ang. ‘nominative ‘accusative De Mann pt em Hund den Kuchen. “The man gives the cag the ke. ‘nominative dative aerusative (ives the eake tothe dg). De Hand des Bickers int den Kuchen. “The bakers dag eats the cake ‘nominative geri caecurstive Use of the Cases Nominative: the subject of the sentence is ways in the nominative case. Asa rule of thumbs, the subject is the person or thing performing the action of the verb. Tp take one of the examples ftom above, in che sentence Der Hund beift-den Mann, the dog is the one doing the biting: he is the subject of the senvence. Accusative: the direct object of che seacence & always in the accusative caw. The direct ‘object i the Jing direcly affected by the action of the verb. So in the sentence Der Hund beibt den Mann, che man i the direct object, because bee is the one who gets bitten, (Gonisiver the penitive case is used to indicate possession. The person or thing which posexcs isin the genitive cae. For example, in the phrase: der Hund des Bickers, it's the baker who pomemes the dog, ao i’ the baker whois in the genitive case. ‘Dative: the indirect object of the sentence is always in the dative case. Think of the indirect object ar the person or thing indirectly affected by the action of the verb. So in the sentence Der Mann gibt dem Hund den Kuchen, the dog is the indirect object, the one ta whom the man gives the eake. The cake is the direct object, the thing which is given. IF