Online Encyclopedia
Vocative case
| Grammatical cases |
|---|
| List of grammatical cases |
| Abessive case |
| Ablative case |
| Absolutive case |
| Adessive case |
| Allative case |
| Causal case |
| Causal-final case |
| Comitative case |
| Dative case |
| Dedative case |
| Delative case |
| Disjunctive case |
| Distributive case |
| Distributive-temporal case |
| Elative case |
| Essive case |
| Essive-formal case |
| Essive-modal case |
| Excessive case |
| Final case |
| Formal case |
| Genitive case |
| Illative case |
| Inessive case |
| Instructive case |
| Instrumental case |
| Lative case |
| Locative case |
| Modal case |
| Multiplicative case |
| Oblique case |
| Objective case |
| Partitive case |
| Possessive case |
| Postpositional case |
| Prepositional case |
| Prolative case |
| Prosecutive case |
| Separative case |
| Sociative case |
| Sublative case |
| Superessive case |
| Temporal case |
| Terminative case |
| Translative case |
| Vialis case |
| Vocative case |
| Morphosyntactic alignment |
| Absolutive case |
| Accusative case |
| Ergative case |
| Instrumental case |
| Instrumental-comitative case |
| Intransitive case |
| Nominative case |
| Declension |
| Declension in English |
The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed, found in Latin among other languages. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence. For example, in the sentence, "I don't know, John.", John is a vocative expression indicating the party who is being addressed.
Historically, the vocative case was an element of the Indoeuropean system of cases, and existed in Latin, Sanskrit, and Classical Greek. Although it has been lost by many modern Indoeuropean languages, some languages have retained the vocative case to this day. Examples are Modern Greek and Slavic languages such as Polish, Czech, Serbo-Croatic, Ukrainian, and - to a lesser extent - Russian.
| Contents |
The vocative case in various languages
Latin
In Latin the vocative case of a noun is the same as the nominative, except for masculine singular second declension nouns that have the ending -us in the nominative case. An example would be the famous line from Shakespeare, "Et tu, Brute?" ("And you, Brutus?", commonly translated as "You too, Brutus?"), where Brute is the vocative case, whilst Brutus would be the nominative case. When Latin names in the vocative case are translated into English, the nominative case is usually used, as English simply uses the nominative case for vocative expressions but sets them off from the rest of the sentences with pauses as interjections (rendered in writing as commas) (see below).
Four historical Indoeuropean languages
on the example of the word for "wolf".
| Proto-Indoeuropean | Latin | Classical Greek | Sanskrit | |
| Nominative case | *wl̥kʷ-o-s | lup-u-s | λύκ-ο-ς (lúk-o-s) | vr̥k-a-s |
| Vocative case | *wl̥kʷ-e-Ø | lup-e-Ø | λύκ-ε (lúk-e-Ø) | vr̥k-a-Ø |
Notes on notation: The elements separated with hyphens denote the stem, the so-called theme vowel of the case and the actual suffix. The symbol "Ø" means that there is no suffix in a place where other cases may have one. In Latin, e.g., the nominative case is lupus and the vocative case is lupe!, whereas the accusative case is lupum. The asterisk in front of the Indoeuropean words means that they are merely hypothetical reconstructions, not based on any written sources.
Polish
In Polish, unlike in Latin, the vocative is almost always different from the nominative case and is being formed according to a complex grammatical pattern. Here are some examples.
| Nominative case | Vocative case |
| Pani Ewa (Ms Eve) | Pani Ewo! (Ms Eve!) |
| Pan profesor (Mr Professor) | Panie profesorze! (Mr Professor!) |
| Krzysztof (Christoph) | Krzysztofie! (Christoph!) |
| Krzyś (affectionate form of Krzysztof) | Krzysiu! |
| Ewusia (affectionate form of Ewa) | Ewusiu! |
| Marek (Mark) | Marku! |
There are very few exceptions where the vocative case can be replaced with the nominative (e.g. Ewa!), but normally it is used even in informal speech.
Vocative-like expressions in English
In English the vocative case is not marked, but English syntax performs a similar function; witness: "John, could you come here?" or "I don't think so, John", where "John" is neither subject nor object of the verb, but rather indicates the person to whom the statement is being addressed. Other examples for vocative markers are O Death, where is thy victory, or Hey, you!. These vocative expressions are usually classified as interjections and can occur in any clause, irrespective of mood. Some examples:
- Good morning, class!
- Don't forget your swimming trunks, George.
- Hey, George, did you remember to bring your swimming trunks?
- No, Bob, I forgot.
- I'm proud of you, son.
- If I were you, Mary, I'd take Spanish next year instead of French, it's the Future.
- Death, be not proud!