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This is a list of grammatical cases as they are used by various inflectional languages that have declension.

Place and Time[]

Note: Most cases used for location and motion can be used for time as well.


Location[]

Case Usage Example Found in
Adessive case adjacent location near/at/by the house Finnish | Hungarian | Lithuanian | Livonian | Tlingit | Tsez | Quechua
Apudessive case location next to something next to the house Tsez
Inessive case inside something inside the house Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Ossetic | Tsez
Intrative case between something between the houses Limbu
Locative case location at/on/in the house Azeri | Bangla (Bengali) | Belarusian | Chuvash | Croatian | Czech, Hungarian (only for some traditional town names) | Inari Sami | Latin (restricted) | Latvian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Northern Sami | Polish | Quechua | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovene | Telugu | Tlingit | Turkish | Ukrainian | Uzbek
(Note: the case in Slavic languages termed the "locative case" in English is actually a prepositional case.)
Pertingent case in contact with something touching the house Tlingit
Subessive case under something under/below the house Tsez
Superessive case on the surface on (top of) the house Hungarian, Ossetic, Tsez

Motion from[]

Case Usage Example Found in
Ablative case movement away from something away from the house Chuvash | Erzya | Estonian | Evenki | Finnish | Hungarian | Inuktitut | Latin | Manchu | Ossetic | Sanskrit | Tlingit | Tsez | Turkish | Uzbek | Yukaghir
Delative case movement from the surface from (the top of) the house Hungarian
Egressive case marking the beginning of a movement or time beginning from the house Udmurt
Elative case out of something out of the house Estonian | Evenki | Finnish | Hungarian
Initiative case starting point of an action beginning from the house Manchu

Motion to[]

Case Usage Example Found in
Allative case in Hungarian and in Finnish:
movement to (the adjacency of) something
in Finnish:
movement onto something
to the house

onto the house
Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Tlingit | Tsez | Turkish | Tuvan | Uzbek
Illative case movement into something into the house Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Inari Sami | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Tsez
Lative case motion to location to/into the house Erzya | Finnish | Tsez | Turkish
Sublative case movement onto the surface or below something on(to) the house / under the house Hungarian | Tsez
Terminative case marking the end of a movement or time as far as the house Chuvash | Estonian | Hungarian | Manchu

Motion via[]

Case Usage Example Found in
Perlative case movement through or along through/along the house Evenki | Tocharian A & B | Warlpiri | Yankunytjatjara
Prolative case movement using a surface or way by way of/through the house Erzya | Estonian (rare) | Finnish | Tlingit
Prosecutive case across or along along the road Kalaallisut
Vialis case through or by by way of the house, using the house Inuktitut

Time[]

Case Usage Example Found in
Antessive case

[1] || before something || before the concert

Dravidian languages
Temporal case (used only with time expressions)
specifying a time
at seven Finnish | Hungarian

Chart for review for the basic cases[]

  interior surface adjacency state
from Elative Delative Ablative Exessive
at/in Inessive Superessive Adessive Essive
(in)to Illative Sublative Allative Translative
via Perlative Vialis Prosecutive Prolative

Morphosyntactic alignment[]

For meanings of the terms agent, patient, experiencer, and instrument, see thematic relation.

Case Usage Example Found in
Absolutive case (1) patient, experiencer he pushed the door and it opened Basque
Absolutive case (2) patient, involuntary experiencer he pushed the door and it opened; he slipped active languages
Absolutive case (3) patient; experiencer; instrument he pushed the door with his hand and it opened Inuktitut
Accusative case (1) patient he pushed the door and it opened Akkadian | Arabic | Azeri | Croatian | Czech | Erzya | Esperanto | Finnish | German | Greek | Hungarian | Icelandic | Inari Sami | Latin | Lithuanian | Northern Sami | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovene | Ukrainian
Accusative case (2) direct object of a transitive verb; made from; about; for a time I see her Inuktitut | Persian | Turkish
Ergative case agent he pushed the door and it opened Basque | Chechen | Dyirbal | Georgian | Samoan | Tlingit | Tsez
Ergative-genitive case agent, possession he pushed the door and it opened; her dog Classic Maya | Inuktitut
Instructive means, answers question how? by means of the house Estonian (rare) | Finnish
Instrumental instrument, answers question with which thing? with the house Belarusian | Croatian | Czech | Evenki | Georgian | Lithuanian | Manchu | Polish |Quenya | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovak | Slovene | Tsez | Ukrainian | Yukaghir
Instrumental-comitative case instrument, in company of something with the house Chuvash | Hungarian | Tlingit
Nominative case (1) agent, experiencer he pushed the door and it opened nominative-accusative languages and nominative-absolutive languages
Nominative case (2) agent; voluntary experiencer he pushed the door and it opened; she paused active languages
Objective case (1) direct or indirect object of verb I saw her; I gave her the book. Bangla (Bengali) | Chuvash
Objective case (2) direct or indirect object of verb or object of preposition; a catch-all case for any situation except nominative or genitive I saw her; I gave her the book; with her. English | Swedish | Danish | Norwegian
Oblique case all-round case; any situation except nominative concerning the house Hindi | Telugu | Old French
Passive case or patient case the subject of an intransitive verb or the logical complement of a transitive verb The door opened languages of the Caucasus
Pegative case agent in a clause with a dative argument he gave the book to him Azoyú Tlapanec

Relation[]

Case Usage Example Found in
Ablative case all-round indirect case concerning the house Sanskrit | Inuktitut | Latin | Lithuanian | Quenya
Aversive case avoiding or fear avoiding the house Warlpiri | Yidiny
Benefactive case for, for the benefit of, intended for for the house Basque | Quechua | Telugu
Causal case because, because of because of the house Quechua | Telugu
Causal-final case efficient or final cause for a house Chuvash | Hungarian
Comitative case in company of something with the house Dumi | Ingush | Estonian | Finnish (rare) | Inari Sami | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Ossetic (only in Iron)
Dative case shows direction or recipient for/to the house Azeri | Belarusian | Croatian | Czech | Erzya | Georgian | German | Greek | Hindi | Hungarian | Icelandic | Inuktitut | Latin | Lithuanian | Manchu | Ossetic | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Slovak | Slovene | Tsez | Turkish | Ukrainian
Distributive case distribution by piece per house Chuvash | Hungarian | Manchu
Distributive-temporal case how often something happens daily; on Sundays Hungarian
Genitive case shows relationship, possession of the house Akkadian | Arabic | Azeri | Bangla (Bengali) | Belarusian | Chuvash | Croatian | Czech | Danish | Dutch | English | Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Georgian | German | Greek | Icelandic | Inari Sami | Irish | Latin | Lithuanian | Manchu | Northern Sami | Norwegian | Polish | Romanian | Russian | Sanskrit | Serbian | Skolt Sami | Slovak | Slovene | Swedish | Tsez | Turkish | Ukrainian
Ornative case endowment with something equipped with a house Dumi
Possessed case possession by something the house is owned by someone Tlingit
Possessive case direct possession of something owned by the house English | Quenya
Privative case lacking something homeless, without a house Chuvash | Wagiman
Semblative case Similarity to something that tree is like a house Wagiman
Sociative case along with something, together with something with the house Hungarian | Ossetic

Semantics[]

Case Usage Example Found in
Partitive case used for amounts three (of the) houses Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami | Russian | Skolt Sami
Prepositional case when certain prepositions precede the noun in/on/about the house Belarusian | Czech | Polish | Russian | Slovak | Ukrainian (note: this case is called lokál in Czech and in Slovak, miejscownik in Polish, місцевий (miscevý) in Ukrainian and месны (miesny) in Belarusian; these names imply that this case also covers Locative case)
Vocative case used for addressing someone, with or without a preposition Hey, father!
O father!
Father!
Belarusian (rare) | Bulgarian | Croatian | Czech | Georgian | Greek | Hebrew (rare) | Hindi | Irish | Itelmen | Ket | Latin | Lithuanian | Macedonian | Nivkh | Polish | Romanian | Russian (rare) | Sanskrit | Serbian | Telugu | Ukrainian

State[]

Case Usage Example Found in
Abessive case the lack of something without the house Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami | Skolt Sami
Comparative case similarity with something similar to the house Dumi | Mari | Nivkh
Equative case comparison with something like the house Ossetic | Sumerian | Tlingit | Tsez
Essive case temporary state of being as the house Estonian | Finnish | Inari Sami | Inuktitut | Middle Egyptian | Northern Sami | Skolt Sami | Tsez
Essive-formal case marking a condition as a quality as a house Hungarian | Manchu
Essive-modal case marking a condition as a quality as a house Hungarian
Exessive case marking a transition from a condition from as being a house Estonian (rare) | Finnish (dialectal)
Formal case marking a condition as a quality as a house Hungarian
Identical case showing that something is identical being the house Manchu
Orientative case oriented towards something turned towards the house Chukchi | Manchu
Revertive case backwards to something against the house Manchu
Translative case change of a condition into another (turning) into a house Erzya | Estonian | Finnish | Hungarian | Khanty | Manchu
  1. S. Agesthialingom, Prakya Sreesaila Subrahmanyam, Dravidian Linguistics- V: (proceedings of the Seminar on Dravidian Linguistics- V), Page 275, 1976 - 582 pages, Google book search link quote: "(6) 'before' (antessive), (7) 'behind, ..."
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