This is part of archived UD v1 documentation. See http://universaldependencies.org/ for the current version.

home uk/feat issue tracker

Case: case

Case is an inflectional feature of nouns and other parts of speech (adjectives, numerals) that mark agreement with nouns. It is also valency feature of prepositions (saying that the preposition requires its argument to be in that case).

Case helps specify the role of the noun phrase in the sentence. For example, the nominative and accusative cases often distinguish subject and object of the verb, while in fixed-word-order languages these functions would be distinguished merely by the positions of the nouns in the sentence.

Ukrainian morphology distinguishes seven cases: Nom, Gen, Dat, Acc, Ins, Loc, and Voc (this ordering is fixed in the grammar).

Examples

• singular nominative мама  “mother”, genitive мами , dative мамі,  accusative маму,  vocative мамо,  locative мамі,  instrumental мамою
• plural nominative мами,  genitive мам,  dative мамам,  accusative мам,  vocative мами,  locative мамах,  instrumental мамами

The descriptions of the individual case values below include semantic hints about the prototypical meaning of the case. Bear in mind that quite often a case will be used for a meaning that is totally unrelated to the meaning mentioned here. Valency of verbs, adpositions and other words will determine that the noun phrase must be in a particular grammatical case to fill a particular valency slot (semantic role).

Nom: nominative

The base form of the noun, also used as citation form (lemma). This is the word form used for subjects of clauses.

Gen: genitive

Prototypical meaning of genitive is that the noun phrase somehow belongs to its governor; it would often be translated by the English preposition of.

Note that despite considerable semantic overlap, the genitive case is not the same as the feature of possessivity (Poss). Possessivity is a lexical feature, i.e. it applies to lemma and its whole paradigm. Genitive is a feature of just a subset of word forms of the lemma. Semantics of possessivity is much more clearly defined while the genitive (as many other cases) may be required in situations that have nothing to do with possessing.

Examples

• Київ – столиця України.  “Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine.”

Dat: dative

This is the word form often used for indirect objects of verbs.

Examples

• Я подарувала м’яч своєму братові.  “I gave my brother a ball as a present.” (своєму братові  “my brother” is dative and м’яч  “ball” is accusative.)

Acc: accusative

Perhaps the second most widely spread morphological case. This is the word form most frequently used for direct objects of verbs.

Ins: instrumental

The role from which the name of the instrumental case is derived is that the noun is used as instrument to do something (as in писати ручкою  “to write using a pen”). Many other meanings are possible, for example the instrumental is required by the preposition з  “with” and thus it includes the meaning expressed in other languages by the comitative case.

In Ukrainian the instrumental is also used for the agent-object in passive constructions (cf. the English preposition by).

Examples

• Цей закон було схвалено владою.  “This bill has been approved by the government.” (Passive example)

Loc: locative

The locative case often expresses location in space or time, which gave it its name. As elsewhere, non-locational meanings also exist and they are not rare. On the other hand, some location roles may be expressed using other cases (e.g. because those cases are required by a preposition).

This is the only Ukrainian case that is used exclusively in combination with prepositions.

Examples

• В липні я був у Швеції.  “In July I was in Sweden.”
• Вона при надії.  “She is expecting a baby.” Literally: “*She is at hope.” (Non-locational non-temporal example)

Voc: vocative

The vocative case is a special form of noun used to address someone. Thus it predominantly appears with animate nouns (see the feature of Animacy). Nevertheless this is not a grammatical restriction and inanimate things can be addressed as well.

Examples

• Що думаєш, Олю?  “What do you think, Olya?”
• Зоре моя вечірняя, зійди над горою […]  “My evening star, rise over the mountain […]” (poetic language). Technically only the noun Зоре “star” has a different, vocative form, but the possessive pronoun моя “my” and the adjective вечірняя “evening”, which agree with the noun in gender and number, are treated as vocatives as well.

---

Treebank Statistics (UD_Ukrainian)

This feature is universal. It occurs with 7 different values: Acc, Dat, Gen, Ins, Loc, Nom, Voc.

690 tokens (41%) have a non-empty value of Case. 450 types (64%) occur at least once with a non-empty value of Case. 353 lemmas (59%) occur at least once with a non-empty value of Case. The feature is used with 8 part-of-speech tags: NOUN (256; 15% instances), PRON (153; 9% instances), ADJ (92; 5% instances), ADP (86; 5% instances), PROPN (50; 3% instances), DET (34; 2% instances), NUM (15; 1% instances), ADV (4; 0% instances).

NOUN

256 NOUN tokens (99% of all NOUN tokens) have a non-empty value of Case.

The most frequent other feature values with which NOUN and Case co-occurred: Animacy=Inan (184; 72%), Number=EMPTY (177; 69%).

NOUN tokens may have the following values of Case:

• Acc (74; 29% of non-empty Case): спокій, груші, дітей, квіти, думку, копанку, модель, проблеми, хвилинку, яблука
• Dat (1; 0% of non-empty Case): дітям
• Gen (50; 20% of non-empty Case): доларів, гривень, математики, хлопців, Націй, алібі, баранців, бульвару, вікна, градусів
• Ins (12; 5% of non-empty Case): бджолами, водієм, генералом, дурнем, зором, літом, машиною, обличчям, помилками, річкою
• Loc (24; 9% of non-empty Case): яблуку, вокзалі, формі, Сумах, басейні, горах, кав’ярні, квартирі, кухні, кімнаті
• Nom (90; 35% of non-empty Case): хлопець, Начальник, футболіст, Село, бджоли, брат, водій, математики, мураха, номер
• Voc (5; 2% of non-empty Case): Боже, Громадяни, Пане, Президенте, лікарю
• EMPTY (2): ЕНТЕР, селяві

Paradigm спокій	Nom	Acc	Gen
	спокій	спокій	спокою

Case seems to be lexical feature of NOUN. 91% lemmas (171) occur only with one value of Case.

PRON

153 PRON tokens (100% of all PRON tokens) have a non-empty value of Case.

The most frequent other feature values with which PRON and Case co-occurred: PronType=Prs (104; 68%), Number=EMPTY (104; 68%).

PRON tokens may have the following values of Case:

• Acc (29; 19% of non-empty Case): його, її, це, Їх, Те, дещо, мене, нас, тебе, що
• Dat (14; 9% of non-empty Case): мені, собі, всім, тобі, йому, їй, їм
• Gen (12; 8% of non-empty Case): них, нічого, Нас, вас, мене, тебе, цього, чого, чогось
• Ins (6; 4% of non-empty Case): нами, ним, Ким, собою
• Loc (1; 1% of non-empty Case): тому
• Nom (89; 58% of non-empty Case): він, це, я, ти, вона, дехто, що, вони, все, ми
• Voc (2; 1% of non-empty Case): Ви, ти

Paradigm ти	Nom	Acc	Dat	Gen	Voc
	ти	тебе	тобі	тебе	ти

ADJ

92 ADJ tokens (100% of all ADJ tokens) have a non-empty value of Case.

The most frequent other feature values with which ADJ and Case co-occurred: NumType=EMPTY (82; 89%), Number=EMPTY (78; 85%), VerbForm=EMPTY (70; 76%), Voice=EMPTY (70; 76%), Aspect=EMPTY (70; 76%), Degree=EMPTY (50; 54%).

ADJ tokens may have the following values of Case:

• Acc (8; 9% of non-empty Case): бронзову, золоту, першого, півмільйонну, срібну, українську, цілу, четверте
• Dat (1; 1% of non-empty Case): Оскарженого
• Gen (11; 12% of non-empty Case): Минулої, Об’єднаних, вчорашньої, делікатних, злотих, легшого, лютого, святого, торговельного, третього
• Ins (19; 21% of non-empty Case): Важливим, першим, голою, даними, дев’ятою, минулим, недоступною, незнайомими, пожовтілим, ризикованим
• Loc (6; 7% of non-empty Case): далекому, минулому, добрій, широкому
• Nom (45; 49% of non-empty Case): перший, швидший, повинен, розташоване, чесний, Бородаті, Зелена, Кольорові, Кінцевий, Найпростіша
• Voc (2; 2% of non-empty Case): малий, мила

Paradigm перший	Nom	Acc	Ins
	перший	першого	першим

ADP

86 ADP tokens (99% of all ADP tokens) have a non-empty value of Case.

ADP tokens may have the following values of Case:

• Acc (27; 31% of non-empty Case): на, про, у, в, під, через, за
• Gen (18; 21% of non-empty Case): від, до, з, для, Після, без, біля, у, щодо
• Ins (13; 15% of non-empty Case): з, за, над, перед
• Loc (28; 33% of non-empty Case): у, на, по, в
• EMPTY (1): Незважаючи

Paradigm у	Acc	Gen	Loc
	у	у	у

PROPN

50 PROPN tokens (98% of all PROPN tokens) have a non-empty value of Case.

The most frequent other feature values with which PROPN and Case co-occurred: Animacy=Anim (41; 82%), Gender=Masc (37; 74%).

PROPN tokens may have the following values of Case:

• Acc (2; 4% of non-empty Case): Ігоря, Кеннеді
• Dat (1; 2% of non-empty Case): Петрові
• Gen (7; 14% of non-empty Case): Богдана, Валентина, Олени, Полтави, Пуанкаре, Піфагора, Розмарі
• Loc (2; 4% of non-empty Case): Карпатах, Києві
• Nom (33; 66% of non-empty Case): Микола, Павло, Богдан, Крушельниця, Петро, Стрий, Іван, Гнатюк, Кеннеді, Макаревич
• Voc (5; 10% of non-empty Case): С’юзі, Василю, Маріє, Петровичу
• EMPTY (1): Самсунг

Paradigm Богдан	Nom	Gen
Animacy=Anim	Богдан
Animacy=Inan		Богдана

Case seems to be lexical feature of PROPN. 92% lemmas (34) occur only with one value of Case.

DET

34 DET tokens (100% of all DET tokens) have a non-empty value of Case.

The most frequent other feature values with which DET and Case co-occurred: Reflex=EMPTY (28; 82%), Person=EMPTY (28; 82%), Number=EMPTY (23; 68%), Poss=EMPTY (22; 65%).

DET tokens may have the following values of Case:

• Acc (8; 24% of non-empty Case): свою, Котру, котрого, свого, цей, якусь
• Dat (1; 3% of non-empty Case): кожному
• Gen (5; 15% of non-empty Case): своїх, усіх, цих, цієї, її
• Ins (3; 9% of non-empty Case): своїми, такими, іншими
• Nom (16; 47% of non-empty Case): Ті, той, його, Ваші, Котра, Та, Ця, мій, такий, цей
• Voc (1; 3% of non-empty Case): моя

Paradigm свій	Acc	Gen	Ins
Gender=Masc	свого
Gender=Fem	свою
Number=Plur		своїх	своїми

NUM

15 NUM tokens (41% of all NUM tokens) have a non-empty value of Case.

The most frequent other feature values with which NUM and Case co-occurred: NumType=Card (15; 100%), Gender=EMPTY (11; 73%), Number=Plur (11; 73%).

NUM tokens may have the following values of Case:

• Acc (5; 33% of non-empty Case): дві, півтора, три, чотири
• Dat (1; 7% of non-empty Case): Сімом
• Gen (1; 7% of non-empty Case): багатьох
• Ins (3; 20% of non-empty Case): багатьма, чотирма
• Nom (5; 33% of non-empty Case): П’ять, Один, Сім, четверо
• EMPTY (22): 50, мільйонів, 5, 200, 3, 8, 1, 14, 2016, 24

Paradigm багато	Gen	Ins
	багатьох	багатьма

ADV

4 ADV tokens (4% of all ADV tokens) have a non-empty value of Case.

The most frequent other feature values with which ADV and Case co-occurred: Degree=EMPTY (4; 100%).

ADV tokens may have the following values of Case:

• Acc (3; 75% of non-empty Case): багато, скільки, стільки
• Nom (1; 25% of non-empty Case): скільки
• EMPTY (101): непогано, важливо, вже, раніше, коли, завтра, так, тоді, треба, ще

Paradigm скільки	Nom	Acc
	скільки	скільки

Relations with Agreement in Case

The 10 most frequent relations where parent and child node agree in Case: NOUN –[case]–> ADP (50; 93%), NOUN –[amod]–> ADJ (33; 97%), NOUN –[det]–> DET (18; 95%), PRON –[case]–> ADP (14; 93%), NOUN –[appos]–> PROPN (6; 75%), NOUN –[conj]–> NOUN (6; 100%), ADJ –[case]–> ADP (5; 83%), NOUN –[appos]–> NOUN (5; 71%), ADP –[mwe]–> NOUN (5; 100%), PROPN –[appos]–> NOUN (4; 100%).

---

Case in other languages: [bg] [cs] [de] [el] [en] [es] [eu] [fa] [fi] [fr] [ga] [he] [hu] [it] [ja] [ko] [sv] [u]

© 2014 Universal Dependencies contributors. Site powered by Annodoc and brat

.