Grammatical case descriptions...

Question

Hi,My name is cjjc and I am here for help!  I am currently learning the Polish language and have run into some trouble as I have noticed how little I listened at school and therefore lack the English grammatical knowledge to carry on! Oh the irony! What I would like to find out is some simple explanations for grammatical terms so I would like to know if anybody could help me with working out the following grammatical case descriptions:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dative_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusative_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locative_casehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocative_caseI really don't have much idea what these mean and I'd just like to open up a conversation around them.Thanks[Y]p.s.If there are any English mistakes in my post please point them out.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

cjjc

nominative - for the subject of the sentence
genitive - equivalent to "of the ...", "of a ..." or the possessive 's.
dative - for the indirect object
accusative - for the direct object
instrumental - equivalent to "with the ...", "with a ..."
locative - for the object of a prepositional phrase that indicates location
vocative - for calling someone. John! Kathy!

So to put this sentence together

Peter's mother wrote a letter to her daughter with a pen in the kitchen.
gen. nom. acc. dat. ins. loc.

you'll need to know the genitive case of Peter, the nominative case of mother, the accusative case of letter, the dative case of daughter, the instrumental case of pen, and the locative case of kitchen.

Maybe French would be easier?

CJ

Cjjc · Answer

CalifJimMaybe French would be easier?

Ohhhh don't get me started!

Ok I wan't to go through these one by one...

CalifJimnominative - for the subject of the sentence

I took the kettle home - ?

CalifJim · Answer

cjjcI took the kettle home - ?

Oh, dear.

This portends a thread of several hundred posts.

The subject is I. The actor, the agent, the person or the thing that the whole sentence is about is the subject. Very often it's the first word of the sentence, but not always.

The verb (not affected by questions of case) is took.

The direct object is kettle. The direct object is the thing or person acted upon by the actor, agent, subject. It is the thing or person affected in some way by the agent performing the action of the verb.

Here are a few short sentences with little more than subject, verb, and direct object to get you started.

Henry threw the ball. Henry did something. The ball was affected.
The prisoner lit a cigarette. The prisoner did something. The cigarette was affected.
Kathy read a book. ... and so on.
Tolstoy wrote that novel.
My friend invited me.
You found the wallet.
We appreciated the gift.
Mary helped her mother.

CJ

AlpheccaStars · Answer

cjjcI took the kettle home - ?

I - nominative
kettle - accusative

Grammatical case descriptions...

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