THE NOUN - CASE

(1.Nominative, 2.Objective or Accusative, 3.Possessive or Genitive, 4.Vocative or Nominative of Address, 5.Dative)

The Case of a noun can be classified into FIVE.

1. Nominative Case

Definition :

A noun or a pronoun, when it is used as the SUBJECT OF A VERB, it is said to be in the Nominative Case.

e.g.

He bought a book

In the given example ‘He’ is the subject. It is the answer to the question who bought the book? “Bought the book?” is the Predicate and it contains the Verb ‘Bought’. So the noun ‘He’ is said to be in the Nominative Case.

e.g.

Jems was a Singer	Proper Noun
Stars shine at night	Common Noun
Platinum is very precious	Material Noun
The army advanced	Collective Noun

 

2. Objective or Accusative Case

Definition :

A noun or a pronoun, when it is used as the OBJECT OF A VERB, it is said to be in the OBJECTIVE CASE.

e.g.

John killed a dog.

In the given example ‘A dog’ is teh answer to the question ‘What did John kill’? Therefore the noun ‘dog’ is called the OBJECT and it is said in the Objective Case.

e.g.

Jems broke the door	Common Noun
He saw teh crowd	Collective Noun
We went to London	Proper Noun
Dhoni sold all his Gold	Material Noun

 

3. Prossessive or Genitive Case

Definition :

A noun or a pronoun, when it is used to show owenership or possession, authority, origin, kind etc.,

It is said to be in the Possessive or Genitive Case.

e.g.

This is John’s bike.

When the noun is Singular, the Possessive Case is formed by adding ‘S’ (apostrophe S) to the noun and when it is ‘S’ ending Plural by adding an apostrophe after the ‘S’ (S’)

e.g.

Singular	Possessive	Plural	Possessive
Boy	Boy’s	Boys	Boys’
Book	Book’s	Books	Books’
Girl	Girl’s	Girls	Girls’
Man	Man’s	Men	Men’s
Our	Ours	Women	Women’s
My	Mine	Parents	Parents’ Day
You	Yours
80	80s’
2009	2009’s
It	Its
Who	Whose

4. Vocative Case or Nominative Case

Definition :

When the noun is the name of a person SPOKEN TO or ADDRESSED, it is said to be in the Vocative case or we call its case, the Nominative of address

Sit down, Peter

 

Dative Case

Definition :

When a noun indicates the indirect object of the verb - generally, ‘GIVE’ it is said to be in the Dative Case.

David gave Mirza a pen

In the above sentence David was the person to whom Mirza gave a pen. The Indirect object of a verb denotes the person to whome something is given or for whom something is done.

Mirza bought Sachin a letter.

Get Sachin an umbrella.