The accusitive case

Question

The accusitve case.  Could you write me three or four short sentences using the accusitive case?   Appreciated H.M. Hall

Whl626 · Accepted Answer

The house which my uncle built cost him US100,000. ( which is the relative pronoun in accusative case )

She is the girl whom I met on the street the other day. ( whom is the relative pronoun in accusative case )

I say what I mean. ( what is the relative pronoun in accusative case )

Pemmican · Answer

whl, how can you see if it's dative or accusative??

I learned at school, that there's just an object-case in English that doesn't differenciate between dative and accusative.
I'd like to know if and how you can distinguish those two cases, thx a lot

Whl626 · Answer

In the first example : which = the house , and my uncle built ( the house )( which ), and since it is an object of the verb built. That means this relative pronoun is in the accusative case.

The same goes with the second example.

Regarding the third. what = something that, I say something that I mean ( I mean something )

and since something is the object of the verb ' mean ' so, what is the relative pronoun in the accusative case.

Pemmican · Answer

So how can you see then whether a verb needs a dative or an accusative pronoun?
I mean there's no change in the form of the pronoun or any other noun in a sentence so how can you see what case is used?

So would something be a pronoun in the accusative case if I said: "I built something"?
Also there's no change in personal pronouns in these cases, e.g. if you said:
"I will help her" and "I can see her" <-- here, her is the personal pronoun in its object case.

In German you can see the difference in these sentences:
"Ich werde ihr helfen" and "Ich kann sie sehen":
'ihr' in the first sentence is the personal pronoun in its dative case (because the verb helfen reigns the dative) while 'sie' in the 2nd sentence is the pronoun in its accusative case (because the verb sehen reigns the accusative).

Is there any way in English that you can see whether it's dative or accusative?
Thanks for your reply.

Whl626 · Answer

" I sent her a postcard. " ( ' her ' is the pronoun in dative case ) because " I sent her " is not a complete sentence that you need an object ' a postcard ' to form a complete sentence.

dative = the form of a noun, a pronoun or an adjective when it is the indirect object of a verb or is connected with the indirect object.

" I will help her " ( ' her ' is the pronoun in the accusative case )

" She will help me " ( ' she ' is the pronoun in the nominative case ) because the pronounce is placed as the subject of the verb whereas ' her ' is in the object of the verb.

Mike A. · Answer

The first thing to note is the spelling: the correct spelling is a-c-c-u-s-a-t-i-v-e. Another thing to note is that the term often employed to identify the "case" of words like "him", "her" and "whom" is Objective, rather than Accusative (which is misleading in a simplified grammar like English's.)

Unlike German, English doesn't really have a well-developed Dative or Accusative case. We used to have those cases at an earlier stage of the language's development, but now those cases are only vestigial. Our "allgemein" Objective case, where it exists at all, performs both Dative and Accusative functions. What gives you the difference in meaning is generally word order.

For example, in the sentence "I gave him a spoon" -- which in German would be something like "Ich gab ihm einen Loeffel" -- "him" is a word in the Objective case, but it is clearly performing a dative function here. If you want to, you can decide that "him" is in the Dative case, but in English grammar it doesn't make much sense to think of a Dative case. We know that "him" is the indirect object of the verb -- i.e., performs a dative function -- because it *** what is obviously the direct object, "spoon". Note that "spoon", the direct object, is unmarked by case ending, unlike the German.

On the other hand, in a sentence like "I saw him yesterday" -- which in German would be "Ich sah ihn gestern" -- it's the same word "him", in the same Objective case, but since there is no possible role for "him" in this sentence other than the direct object, you know that it has to be the direct object.

In American English, the normal practice would be for indirect objects to precede the direct objects: "I gave him a spoon." In British English -- or so I believe -- sometimes the practice is the opposite: the British might say "I gave it him" -- where "it" (the direct object) comes first.

Hope this helps.

Mike

Anonymous · Answer

Quoted: In British English -- or so I believe -- sometimes the practice is the opposite: the British might say "I gave it him" -- where "it" (the direct object) comes first.

It would be "I gave it to him" in Standard British English.

In some regional British accents, say Yorkshire; then the "to" might be dropped, as it is implied.

Your other sentance "I gave him a spoon." would also pass as Standard British.

(Though more commonly you'd hear: "I gave a spoon to him" or "I have given him a spoon")

The accusitive case

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