“Case Marking”

Morphology & Syntax

English 217

ALPIE S. PEGARRO
Discussant

Maarten Mous
 Morphology
“Case Marking”
Case is grammatical reflex that identifies the
syntactic purpose, or role of a noun in a given
sentence.
-it refers to the function of a noun or pronoun in
clause. Herman (1982) exemplifies three types of
English cases: Nominative, Possessive and
Objective

Maarten Mous
ENGLISH CASE SYSTEM

NOMINATIVE I, We, You, He, She, It, They,

Who
POSSESSIVE (Genitive) My, Our, Your, His, Her, Its,
Their, Whose, Mine, Ours,
Yours, His, Hers, Its, Theirs
OBJECTIVE Me, Us, You, Him, Her, It,
Them, Whom
Nominative (Subjective) or
marked case
• is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or
other part of speech, which generally marks
the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or
predicate adjective, as supposed to its object
or other verb arguments.
• It acts as a subject in the sentence.
• Examples:
We went to school.
I have a chocolate bar.
Possessive Case (genetive)
• Is the grammatical case that marks a noun as
modifying another noun.
• It shows that something (or someone)
belongs to someone (or something).
Examples:
That’s my shirt.
The house is theirs.
Objective (accusative)Case
• Is a nominal case that is used when a noun
phrase is the object of either as verb or
preposition.
• It is used when something is being done to
(or given to, etc.) someone.
Examples:
Give the chocolate to me, please.
Do we have to share it with them?
Other examples:
1.She lent me her father’s car.
She = the nominative case form (glossed
NOM), shows that it is subject
Me = the objective case form (glossed OBJ),
indicates that the pronoun is an object
Father’s = the possessive case form (glossed
POSS/GEN), shows that the noun is genitive
2. He killed it.
He is in the nominative case functioning as
a subject.
It is in the objective case as an object.
3.You gave me Nina’s book.
You = in the nominative case functioning
as a subject.
Me = the objective case form, shows that
the noun is genitive.
The eight historic cases are as follows, with
examples:
1. Nominative case, which corresponds to
English subjective cases, indicates the subject of
a finite verb:
Example: We went to the store.
2. Accusative case, which together with the
dative and ablative case, below corresponds to
English objective case, indicates the direct object
of a verb:
Example: The clerk remembered us.
3. The dative case indicates the indirect object
of a verb:
Example: The clerk gave us a discount.
4. The ablative case indicates the object of
most common prepositions:
Example: The victim went with us to see the
doctor.
5. The genetive case, which corresponds to
English possessive case, indicates the
possessor of another noun:
Example: Our citizens are proud of our country.
6. The vocative case indicates a location:
Example: You there, are you O.K.?
7. The locative case indicates a location:
Example: We live in China.
8. The instrumental case indicates an
object used in performing an action:
Example: We wiped the floor with it.
Thank You For Listening!