Case: case
Case is used for nominal parts-of-speech (nouns, proper nouns, numerals, adjectives and pronouns).
Nom: nominative / direct
The base form of the noun, typically used as citation form (lemma). In many languages this is the word form used for subjects of clauses. If the language has only two cases, which are called “direct” and “oblique”, the direct case will be marked Nom.
Examples
- [hu] év “year”
Acc: accusative / oblique
Perhaps the second most widely spread morphological case. In many languages this is the word form used for direct objects of verbs. If the language has only two cases, which are called “direct” and “oblique”, the oblique case will be marked Acc.
Examples
- [hu] évet “year”
Abs: absolutive
Some languages (e.g. Basque) do not use nominative-accusative to distinguish subjects and objects. Instead, they use the contrast of absolutive-ergative.
The absolutive case marks subject of intransitive verb and direct object of transitive verb.
Examples
- [eu] Maria lotan dago. “Maria is sleeping.”
- [hu] éveként
Dat: dative
This is the word form used for recipient arguments of verbs of transfer.
Examples
- [hu] Ajándékot adok a bátyámnak. “I will give my brother a present.”
Gen: genitive
Examples
- [hu] árának
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. Uralic languages have a complex set of fine-grained locational and directional cases (see below) instead of the locative. Even in languages that have locative, some location roles may be expressed using other cases (e.g. because those cases are required by a preposition).
In Slavic languages this is the only case that is used exclusively in combination with prepositions (but such a restriction may not hold in other languages that have locative).
Examples
- [hu] helyütt
Ins: instrumental / instructive
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 [cs] psát perem “to write using a pen”). Many other meanings are possible, e.g. in Czech the instrumental is required by the preposition s “with” and thus it includes the meaning expressed in other languages by the comitative case.
Examples
- [hu] évvel “by year”
Dis: distributive
The distributive case conveys that something happened to every member of a set, one in a time. Or it may express frequency.
Examples
- [hu] fejenként “per capita”
- [hu] esetenként “in some cases”
- [hu] hetenként “once per week, weekly”
- [hu] tízpercenként “every ten minutes”
Ess: essive / prolative
The essive case expresses a temporary state, often it corresponds to
English “as a …” A similar case in Basque is called prolative
and it should be tagged Ess too.
Examples
- [hu] ráadásul
Tra: translative / factive
The translative case expresses a change of state (“it becomes X”, “it changes to X”). Also used for the phrase “in language X”. In the Szeged Treebank, this case is called factive.
Examples
- [hu] Oroszlány halott várossá válhat. lit. Oroszlány dead city.Tra could-become. “Oroszlány could become a dead city.”
Ine: inessive
The inessive case expresses location inside of something.
Examples
- [hu] ház “house”; házban “in the house”
Ill: illative
The illative case expresses direction into something.
Examples
- [hu] ház “house”; házba “into the house”
Ela: elative
The elative case expresses direction out of something.
Examples
- [hu] ház “house”; házból “from the house”
Ade: adessive
The adessive case expresses location at or on something. The corresponding directional cases are allative (towards something) and ablative (from something).
Examples
- [hu] pénztár “cash desk”; pénztárnál “at the cash desk”
Note that adessive is used to express location on the surface of something in Finnish and Estonian, but does not carry this meaning in Hungarian.
All: allative
The allative case expresses direction to something (destination is adessive, i.e. at or on that something).
Examples
- [hu] pénztár “cash desk”; pénztárhoz “to the cash desk”
Abl: ablative
Prototypical meaning: direction from some point.
Examples
- [hu] a barátomtól jövök “I’m coming from my friend”
Sup: superessive
Used, chiefly in Hungarian, to indicate location on top of something or on the surface of something.
Examples
- [hu] asztal “table”; asztalon “on the table”
- [hu] könyvek “books”; könyveken “on books”
Sbl: sublative
The sublative case is used in Finno-Ugric languages to express the destination of movement, originally to the surface of something (e.g. “to climb a tree”), and, by extension, in other figurative meanings as well (e.g. “to university”).
Examples
- [hu] Belgrádtól 150 kilométerre délnyugatra lit. Belgrade.Abl 150 kilometer.Sbl southwest.Sbl “150 kilometers southwest of Belgrade”
- [hu] hajó “ship”; hajóra “onto the ship”
- [hu] bokorra “on the shrub”
Del: delative
Used, chiefly in Hungarian, to express the movement from the surface of something (like “moved off the table”). Other meanings are possible as well, e.g. “about something”.
Examples
- [hu] asztal “table”; az asztalról “off the table”
- [hu]Budapestről jövök “I am coming from Budapest”
Tem: temporal
The temporal case is used to indicate time.
Examples
- [hu] hétkor “at seven (o’clock)”; éjfélkor “at midnight”; karácsonykor “at Christmas”
Ter: terminative / terminal allative
The terminative case specifies where something ends in space or time.
Examples
- [hu] a házig “up to the house”; hat óráig “till six o’clock”
Cau: causative / motivative / purposive
Noun in this case is the cause of something. In Hungarian it also seems to be used frequently with currency (“to buy something for the money”) and it also can mean the goal of something.
Examples
- [hu] Egy világcég benzinkútjánál 7183 forintért tankoltam. lit. a world-wide.company petrol.station.Ade 7183 forint.Cau refueled “I refueled my car at the petrol station of a world-wide company for 7183 forints.”
- [hu] Elmentem a boltba tejért. lit. went the shop.Ill milk.Cau “I went to the shop to buy milk.”
Case in other languages: [am] [apu] [arr] [bej] [bg] [cs] [el] [eme] [en] [es] [ess] [et] [fi] [ga] [gn] [grc] [gub] [hu] [hy] [ka] [kmr] [koi] [kpv] [ky] [mdf] [myu] [myv] [pcm] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [tl] [tpn] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urb] [urj]