follow Lange focus on Facebook Twitter
and Instagram hello everyone welcome to
the line focused Channel and my name is
Paul
today's video is a quick video to
explain a concept that I often talk
about in my videos but the viewers
sometimes don't understand and they ask
me about in the comments
the concept is grammatical case case
refers to the grammatical function of a
noun or of a pronoun in a sentence for
example if these are all the words in a
sentence 8 lion honey badger the AH
there are two possible messages this one
the lion ate the honey badger or this
one
the honey badger ate the lion there are
two roles in the sentence the animal
doing the eating and the animal being
eaten in English we normally know which
role a noun is fulfilling based on word
order the subject of the sentence comes
here and the object of a sentence comes
here prepositions can also tell us a
nouns function for example the honey
badger gave a warning to the snake the
preposition to tells us the snake is the
indirect object receiving the action but
in many languages word order and
prepositions are not the main ways to
show the function of a noun the form of
the noun might change or a special
ending might be added to the word to
show its function in the sentence in
English we do this to show possession
like in the phrase the lions defeat the
apostrophe s shows that the defeat
belongs to the lion and in English we
also have pronouns that change form to
show grammatical case for example I
robbed her she robbed me I and she are
the subject forms while me and her are
the object forms but there are languages
that show grammatical case much more
than English does the most common
grammatical cases are probably
nominative accusative and genitive
nominative case generally indicates the
subject of a sentence which often means
the person or thing doing the action
like this in Arabic ekala wala do
taffyta meaning the boy ate an apple
here we can see that the word for boy
wahlid has an e at the end because it is
the subject of the sentence a nominative
case can also indicate the thing that
the subject is equivalent to so in this
sentence who are till middlin here the
word for student tilith has own at the
end to indicate nominative case because
it is equal to the subject the
ending has the extra m sound at the end
because it's indefinite these kinds of
changes to the form of a word to show
grammatical difference are called
inflections accusative case generally
indicates the direct object of a verb in
Arabic it has that use along with some
other uses for example a shabu have
Holly be' which means I drink milk here
the word for milk Holub has an e at the
end to indicate that it's the direct
object or the accusative case genitive
case generally indicates that one noun
is being modified by another one often
to show possession mudada Sawalha D
meaning the boys teacher here the word
for boy-wallet
has an e sound at the end to show
possession those are probably the three
cases you're most likely to run into but
depending on the language there are
numerous other cases as well the dative
case is generally used for a noun which
receives something something moves
towards that noun Pecunia
who a line on daddy I didn't give the
girl money here the Latin word for girl
puella has an e at the end to indicate
that she is the indirect object on the
receiving end of an action located case
is used to indicate a location here's an
example from Turkish everyday beer kita
oka doom which means I read a book at
home here the word for house F has day
at the end to show that it's the
location where the reading took place in
English we use a separate preposition
like at in or on to show location rather
than a case inflection instrumental case
is used for a noun that is used as a
tool or a means of completing an action
here's an example from polish peisha
Purim which means I write with a pen the
word for pen peewit all ends with the
final Oh which is replaced by e M
because it's the instrument being used
to carry out the action of writing
notice that because of that ending there
is no need to add a standalone
preposition meaning with those are some
of the most common cases the main thing
to keep in mind is that the form of the
noun or of the pronoun changes depending
on its function in the sentence
sometimes cases apply not only to nouns
but also to words that are connected to
them like adjectives and articles here's
an example of an adjective being
inflected for case this time again in
Arabic al vin - Algie mila - which
means the beautiful girl here the noun
for girl bint has the nominative case
ending and so does the adjective Jamila
but the Arabic equivalent of H at the
end of the word changes to a T sound
before the case ending and here's an
example of articles taking case
inflection this time from Old English
say Kooning the king in nominative case
in the genitive case it's fast qu Negus
so the noun is inflected with the
genitive ending and the definite article
also has a special form in the genitive
case words have particular functions in
all languages of course but only in
certain languages do they commonly
indicate these functions with changes to
the form of the word when talking about
languages that do so we often talk about
noun cases or case endings but remember
that not only nouns can be inflected for
case but also pronouns which represent
nouns and also adjectives which modify
nouns and articles which show whether
nouns are definite or indefinite I hope
that was a helpful summary for anyone
who needed clarification so the quick
question of the day do words in your
language change form depending on their
function in the sentence if you can
think of an example let us know in the
comments down below be sure to follow
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watching and have a nice stay
oh right and Happy New Year
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you
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