Subjective case

Question

John is a driver.Is "a driver" in the subjective case in the above sentence?

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

Driver is (grammatically speaking) a subject complement.

Anonymous · Answer

AlpheccaStarsDriver is (grammatically speaking) a subject complement.

Does it mean that there is a complement case in English declension?

Fivejedjon · Answer

We don't normally think of English in terms of cases and declensions, We think rather of functions. Nouns can function as subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, subject complements, etc.

Anonymous · Answer

fivejedjonWe don't normally think of English in terms of cases and declensions, We think rather of functions.

I see.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

AnonymousDoes it mean that there is a complement case in English declension?

No.
An inflected language is one in which the words of the language are comprised of roots, or stems, and inflections, or endings. The roots remain relatively stable, and the inflections change depending on what function the word has in the sentence. The ending of a word ( morpheme) in such a highly inflected language can precisely determine its "case" and function in a sentence.

Noun declination has mostly disappeared in English. Old English was highly inflected and there are residuals in the pronouns, possessive (-'s; s') and plural (-s, -es) endings.
So we cannot infer "case" from the ending of a noun (or adjective) as one can in inflected languages (Russian, Latin, Spanish) .
Grammarians have "functional" labels in place of "case" in positional languages such as English.
Some of these labels are subject, complement, modifier, adjunct, and object.

Subjective case

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