212 Cartography: Semiotics

semiotic point of view leads to a complex picture of

the possibilities and the limitations that the map
offers (Foote, 1985, 1988). Technologically made
maps belong to a contemporary code of mapmaking
that involves the use of informatics. But informatics
itself is a code of its own. In effect, the lesson to be
learned from studying maps semiotically is that no
matter how accurate we try to make our scientific
texts, they are inevitably subject to human interpretation in psychological, historical, and cultural terms.
See also: Iconicity; Indexicality: Theory; Sapir, Edward
(18841939); Texts: Semiotic Theory; Visual Semiotics;
Whorf, Benjamin Lee (18971941).

Bibliography
Bertin J (1967). Semiologie graphique. The Hague: Mouton.
Casti E (2000). Reality as representation: the semiotics of
cartography and the generation of meaning. Bergamo:
Bergamo University Press.
Crane N (2002). Mercator: the man who mapped the planet.
New York: Weidenfeld & Nicholson.
Derrida J (1976). Of grammatology. Spivak G C (trans.).
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Foote K E (1985). Space, territory, and landscape: the borderlands of geography and semiotics. Semiotic Inquiry 5,
159174.
Foote K E (1988). Object as memory: the material foundations of human semiosis. Semiotica 69, 243268.

Hsu M-L (1979). The cartographers conceptual process

and thematic symbolization. The American Cartographer
6, 117127.
Ljungberg C (2002). City maps: the cartosemiotic connection. In Simpkins S & Deely J (eds.) Semiotics 2001.
193205.
Ljungberg C (2004). Logical aspects of maps. Semiotica
148, 413437.
Palek B (1991). Semiotics and cartography. In Sebeok T A
& Umiker-Sebeok J (eds.) Recent developments in theory
and history. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 465491.
Pravda J (1993). Map language. Cartographica 30, 1214.
Pravda J (ed.) (1994). Cartographic thinking and map semiotics. Special issue of Geographia Slovaca (5). Bratislava: Slovenska Akademia vied Geograficky Ustav.
Robinson A H & Petchenik B B (1976). The nature of maps.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schlichtmann H (1985). Characteristic traits of the semiotic
system: map symbolism. The Cartographic Journal 22,
2330.
Schlichtmann H (1999a). Map symbolism revisited: units,
order and contexts. Geographia Slovaca 5, 4762.
Schlichtmann H (ed.) (1999b). Map semiotics around the
world. International Cartographic Association.
Turnbull D (1989). Maps are territories. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Wolodtschenko A (1999). Cartosemiotics: component
of theoretical cartography. Geographia Slovaca 5,
6385.
Wood D & Fels J (1986). Design on signs: myth and
meaning in maps. Cartographica 23, 54103.

Case
B J Blake, LaTrobe University, Bundoora, Victoria,
Australia
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Case Marking
Case is essentially a system of marking dependent
nouns for the type of relationship they bear to their
heads. Traditionally, the term refers to inflectional
marking, and, typically, case marks the relationship
of a noun to a verb at the clause level or of a noun to a
preposition, postposition, or another noun at the
phrase level. Straightforward examples of case systems can be found in the Dravidian languages.
Table 1 shows the set of case forms for the noun
makan son in Malayalam.
The nominative is the citation form and is used for
the subject of a clause. The accusative is used for the

direct object and the dative for the indirect object (the
recipient of a verb of giving). The genitive expresses
the possessor (makanre peena sons pen) and the
sociative (alternatively comitative) expresses the notion of being in the company of. The locative
expresses location, and the instrumental expresses
the instrument, as in cut with a knife and the agent
of the passive. The ablative expresses from. It is built

Table 1 Malayalam case system

Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Genitive
Sociative
Locative
Instrumental
Ablative

makan
makane
makanne
makanre
makanoo<e
makanil
makanaal
makanilninne

Case 213

(consonant stems and i-stems). The designations

a -stems, o-stems, and so forth are not synchronically transparent and reflect the product of historical
reconstruction.
In Latin, there is also a three-way gender distinction: masculine, feminine, and neuter. With a few
exceptions male creatures are masculine and females
feminine, but inanimates are scattered over all three
genders (though almost all neuter nouns are inanimate). There is a partial association of form and
gender in that a -stems are almost all feminine and
o-stems mostly masculine (except for a subclass of
neuters, represented by bellum in Table 2). This
means that there can be fusion of gender, number,
and case. The point is illustrated in Table 2, where we
have domina mistress (of a household) illustrating
feminine a -stems and dominus master (of a household), which is based on the same root, representing
masculine o-stems. As can be seen from Table 2, the
word form domina simultaneously represents nominative case, feminine gender, and singular number;
dominum represents accusative case, masculine gender, and singular number; and similarly with other
word forms.
In Latin, adjectives decline like nouns, and there is
concord between a noun and an attributive or predicative adjective. This concord is sensitive to case and
number, and those adjectives that belong to the first
and second declension are sensitive to gender. So we
find domina bona good mistress and agricola bonus
good farmer, where agricola is one of the few nouns
of masculine gender in the first declension. With
adjectives of the first and second declensions, the
inflections simultaneously represent case, number,
and gender without exception.

on the locative, and some linguists would take a form

like makanilninne to consist of the locative plus the
postposition ninne.
Malayalam and the other Dravidian languages
provide good examples of case systems since these
languages are agglutinative and the case marking
(-e accusative, -il locative, etc.) can easily be isolated.
Moreover, the case marking is consistent across singular and plural. Plural is marked as a first-order
suffix between the stem and the case marking, as in
the following:
(1) Kappal tiramaala-kaU-e bheedicu.
ship
wave-PL-ACC
split-PT
The ship broke through the waves.

In Malayalam, the accusative case is generally used

for the direct object only for human nouns, the nominative being used for other nouns. However, where
both subject and object are inanimate as in (1), the
accusative is used.
Case systems are a feature of conservative IndoEuropean languages such as Russian and Greek, and
much of our framework for describing case comes
from the study of the classical languages Ancient
Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. However, there is a complication in these languages in that number marking
and case marking are never separate. This means
separate paradigms for the two number categories
of singular and plural. Moreover, there are different
case/number forms for different stem classes. Traditionally five such classes are recognized, and there are
also variations within the classes. Three of these classes, or declensions as they are usually referred to, are
illustrated in Table 2: the first declension (a -stems),
second declension (o-stems). and third declension
Table 2 Latin case paradigms
1
a-stems
feminine

Singular
Nominative
Vocative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Ablative
Plural
Nominative
Vocative
Accusative
Genitive
Dative
Ablative

2
o-stems

3a

3b

cons.stems

i-stems

masculine

neuter

domina

dominus

bellum

consul

cvis

mistress

master

war

consul

citizen

domina
domina
dominam
dominae
dominae
domina

dominus
domine
dominum
domin
domino
domino

bellum
bellum
bellum
bell
bello
bello

consul
consul
consulem
consulis
consul,
consule

cvis
cvis
cvem
cvis
cv
cv, cve

dominae
dominae
dominas
dominarum
domins
domins

domin
domin
dominos
dominorum
domins
domins

bella
bella
bella
bellorum
bells
bells

consules
consules
consules
consulum
consulibus
consulibus

cves
cves
cvs, cves
cvium
cvibus
cvibus

214 Case

Six cases are recognised: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, and ablative; however,
no paradigm exhibits six different forms. In the traditional descriptions, a case is established wherever
there is a distinction for any single class of nominals,
since this facilitates the description of the functions.
The vocative, the case used in forms of address, has a
distinctive form only in the singular of the second
declension. Elsewhere there is a common form for
the nominative and vocative; however, distinct nominative and vocative cases are recognized for all paradigms. The utility of this approach can be seen in a
phrase such as O so l laudande Oh, praiseworthy
sun. Here the adjective has a distinctive vocative
form (masculine, singular) but the noun so l does
not, but we can still say there is concord.

Types of Case
The term case is from Latin ca sus, which is in turn a
translation of the Greek pto sis fall. The nominative
was considered the basic form of nominals, and the
other cases fell away from this form and were referred to as the oblique cases. In some languages there
is a formal difference between the nominative and the
oblique, inasmuch as the oblique cases are built on
a common oblique stem. In Malayalam, for instance,
some nouns such as maram tree have an oblique
stem maratt- so the accusative is maratte, locative
marattil, and so on (cf. Table 1).
In the description of cases, a distinction is often
made between syntactic or grammatical cases and
semantic cases. The nominative and accusative are
grammatical cases in that they encode the grammatical relations of subject and object respectively,
whereas a case such as the locative in Malayalam
is semantic in that it expresses a specific semantic
role, namely, the notion of position. It can also be
said that nominative and accusative function to distinguish arguments of a predicate, whereas a semantic
case has content and is a predicate. A further distinction is sometimes made among the semantic cases
between local and nonlocal cases. Local cases are
those referring to place such as locative (at), allative
(to), and ablative (from). However, the distinction
between grammatical and semantic case is blurred
somewhat by the fact that a primarily grammatical
case can have a semantic function and a semantic case
can have a grammatical function. In Latin the accusative, a grammatical case, is used to express destination Va do Ro mam I go to Rome and extent or
duration, as in xxv anno s for 25 years, and the
ablative, a semantic case, is used for the logical subject in the passive (occsus a consule killed by the
consul).

The genitive case is distinct from the others in that

it is typically adnominal, marking the dependent of a
nominal, whereas the other cases typically mark the
dependents of verbs. The genitive has a semantic
function, namely that of expressing possession, as in
the Latin phrase consulis equus the consuls horse,
but it can have a variety of other functions. In Latin
its grammatical character can be seen particularly in
a phrase such as amor patris. This phrase is ambiguous: it can mean either the love felt by a father or the
love directed towards the father. The former is called
the subjective genitive since pater corresponds to the
subject in the verbal expression: Pater amat Father
loves. The latter is called the objective genitive since
pater corresponds to the object in Amat patrem
He or she loves father.
The dative case takes its name from the Latin
verb dare to give since it expresses the recipient
of verbs of giving. In Latin the dative also expresses
the complement of a handful of two-place verbs
such as fidere to trust and parere to obey. It additionally expresses the experiencer of a few verbs
such as placere to please: Domino non placet bellum
War is not pleasing to the master. A similar range of
functions can be found in a number of languages.
However, in a few languages, and regularly across
the Indian subcontinent, the dative encodes the
actor in certain aspects. In Malayalam, for instance,
the dative in conjunction with the potential marker aam on the verb signals physical ability or permission.
(2) Avalkku avane
her.DAT
him.ACC
She can hit him.

itikkaam.
can/may.hit

The Latin ablative also illustrates a further complication. Although nominally a semantic case expressing from, it represents a syncretism of an ablative,
locative, and instrumental, which were distinguished
in earlier stages of the language, and therefore it
expresses a variety of semantic roles.
A more useful distinction than between syntactic
and semantic cases is between core and peripheral
cases, where the core refers to subject and object.

Types of Case System

Accusative system

The most common system of core cases is one that

opposes nominative for subject and accusative for
object. This system is found in various language
families, including Indo-European, Uralic, Turkic,
Mongolian, Tungusic, and Dravidian (see (1) above),
as well as in Korean and Japanese (see (15) below).

Case 215
Ergative system

A sizable minority of languages have one case for

the agent of a transitive verb (A) and another for the
subject of an intransitive predicate (S) and direct
object (O). The former is called the ergative case,
and the latter is called either nominative or absolutive. The latter label is also used for a grammatical
relation covering S and O. The absolutive is usually
unmarked, as in the following illustration from
Yalarnnga (Australian).
(3) Yirri
tjala
ngani-mi
man.ABS this.ABS go-FU
The man will go for fish.

yimarta-ta.
fish-PURP

(4) Kilawurru tjala

yirri-nthu wala-mu
this.ABS man-ERG
hit-PT
galah.ABS
payarla-yu.
boomerang-ERG
A man killed the galah with a boomerang.

Note that in (4) the ergative also encodes the role of

instrument. It is very common for ergatives to have
non-core functions, another example of grammatical
cases having semantic functions.
Ergative systems are often considered rare and remote, but in fact they make up at least 20% of the
worlds languages. Ergative systems are to be found
in Basque, all families of the Caucasian phylum, in
the Tibeto-Burman languages, in Austronesian, in
most Australian languages, in some languages of
the Papuan families, in Eskimo-Aleut, in Tsimshian
and Chinook in North America, in the Mayan languages of Central America and several families of
South America (Dixon, 1994:5), and in Hurrian and
several other languages of the ancient Near East.
Split-intransitive system

Some languages, perhaps no more than a few score,

organize their core grammar so that the argument of
some one-place predicates is marked like the A of
a two-place verb, while the argument of the other
one-place predicates is marked like the O of a twoplace verb. Such languages have been called splitintransitive languages or split-S languages (Dixon,
1994:70ff). Examples can be found in the Kartvelian
(South Caucasian) languages of the Caucasus. The
following sentences are from Laz. Note that the
suffix -k, glossed ergative on the basis of its appearance on A in transitive clauses like (7), also appears
on the agent of the intransitive verb in (5). On the
other hand, the subject of the intransitive verb in (6) is
unmarked like the O of (7).
(5) Bere-k
imgars.
child-ERG 3SG.cry
The child cries.

(6) Bere
oxori-s
doskidu.
child.ABS house-DAT 3SG.stay
The child stayed in the house.
(7) Baba-k
father-ERG

mec caps
skiri-s
cxeni.
3SG.give.
child-DAT horse.ABS
3SG.3SG
The father gives a horse to his child.

This pattern also occurs in Georgian, but it applies

only to certain classes of verbs in the aorist tense
group. In the present tense, all subjects are in the
nominative case and the direct objects in the dative.
The active system is also found in the Americas,
where it usually shows up in the bound pronouns
on the verb. It has been reported from Guaran
(Andean); Lakhota (Lakota) and other Siouan languages; the Pomoan (Pomo) languages; Caddo, Arikara,
and other Caddoan languages; and Mohawk,
Seneca, and other Iroquoian languages. It also occurs
in Acehnese (Austronesian).
Direct-Inverse System

Another system of marking the core relations is the

direct-inverse system. In this system, which is characteristic of the Algonquian languages, the marking on
the verb indicates whether an activity is direct or
inverse. If the action proceeds from first or second
person to third it is direct, but if it proceeds from third
to first or second it is inverse. In transitive clauses
with two third-person participants, the direct and
inverse markers distinguish whether a more topical
participant (proximate) is A, which gives a direct
combination, or a less topical participant (obviative)
is A, which gives an inverse combination. A more
topical participant will be chosen on the basis
of discourse principles and will tend to be the
last-mentioned person or the discourse topic. The
less topical person is marked by the obviative suffix
-wa.
(8) a. Napew
atim-wa
man.PROX
dog-OBV
The man saw the dog.
b. Napew-(w)a atim
man-OBV
dog.PROX
The man saw the dog.

wapam-e-w.
see-DIRECT-3SG

(9) a. Atim
napew-(w)a
dog.PROX man-OBV
The dog saw the man.
b. Atim-wa napew
dog-OBV
man.PROX
The dog saw the man.

wapam-e-w.
see-DIRECT-3SG

wapam-ik.
see-INVERSE.3SG

wapam-ik.
see-INVERSE.3SG

As can be seen, there are two ways of expressing

the same propositional content according to which
participant is chosen as topic.

216 Case

Factors Affecting Marking

It is not common to find languages in which the
nominative-accusative or absolutive-ergative distinction holds for all nominals in every context. The
older Indo-European languages such as Latin
might be thought to provide good examples of a
nominative-accusative distinction, but this distinction
is neutralized for nouns of the neuter gender. This is
illustrated by the word bellum war in Table 2. Almost all neuter nouns in Latin are inanimate, though
there are numerous inanimates that have masculine
or feminine gender. Even in languages like Japanese
and Korean, in which the subject and object are
marked by postpositions (see (15) below), there is a
tendency to drop the postpositions in colloquial
speech; the subject marker is more likely to be lost if
the subject is pronominal or human, and the object
marker is more likely to be lost if the object is inanimate or indefinite. In fact, there is a very strong crosslanguage tendency for object marking to be confined
to objects that are pronominal, human, or definite. In
Spanish, for instance, subject and object are distinguished in the clitic pronouns, but with free nominals
the preposition a, which otherwise means to, is used
with specific human objects: Busco un empleado Im
looking for an employee (anyone will do), Busco a un
empleado Im looking for an employee (the one who
was here a minute ago).
A large number of languages mix accusative and
ergative marking, but the two types of marking tend
to complement one another. If we take the hierarchy
in Table 3, we can say that where accusative or ergative marking co-occur, accusative marking covers a
continuous segment of the hierarchy from the top and
ergative from the bottom. In the Pama-Nyungan languages of Australia, for instance, ergative marking is
found on all nouns. It may extend to third-person
pronouns, and in a few languages it covers all nominals. Accusative marking in these languages is generally found on all pronouns. In some, it extends to
cover kin terms and personal names, or all humans
as well.
The principle that seems to underlie these restrictions on marking reflects a view that the most natural
transitive predication is one with an agent at the top
Table 3 Nominal hierarchy
1st person
2nd person
3rd person
kin terms and personal names
human
animate
inanimate

of the hierarchy and a patient at the bottom. Marking

tends to be confined to deviations from this ideal, that
is, mark pronominal objects with accusative, and
nouns, as opposed to pronouns, with ergative.
In some languages there is a split between accusative and ergative on tense or aspect lines. A number
of Indo-Aryan languages, including Hindi-Urdu
(Literary Hindi), Marathi, and Punjabi (Panjabi),
and some Iranian languages, such as Pashto and
Kurdish, are described as having an ergative construction only in the perfect. Typical Indo-Aryan languages are described as having a direct/oblique case
system where the direct case encodes S, A, and O and
the oblique is governed by postpositions. However, if
O is animate and specific, it is usually marked by
a postposition. There is also subject-verb agreement,
as in the following examples from Marathi:
(10) Ti
keel.
khaa-t-e.
she banana eat-PRES-3SG.F
She eats a banana.
(11) Ti
Ravi laa
chal. -l. -a.
she Ravi ACC torture-PRES-3SG.F
She tortures Ravi.

In the perfect, however, A is marked by a postposition. The verb agreement is with P unless P is
marked by the postposition for specific, animate
nouns, with the verb then remaining in its neutral
form. In Marathi, the ergative postposition is ni.
(12) Ti
ni
kel. i
she ERG banana.PL
She ate bananas.
(13) Ti
ni
Ravi laa
she ERG Ravi ACC
She tortured Ravi.

khaa-ll-it.
eat-PERF-3PL
chal. -l. -a.
torture-PERF-NEUT

The postposition laa, glossed as ACCusative,

marks indirect as well as direct objects.

Size of Case Systems

Some languages have no case system at all, and this is
possible since there are alternative mechanisms. For
the core relations, one alternative is to use word
order. Subject and object are distinguished by the
use of the unmarked word order subject-verb-object
in a number of languages, including Thai, Cambodian (Central Khmer), and Vietnamese. This is also
true of English, but English has vestigial two-way
case system marked on most personal pronouns
(I/me, she/her, he/him, we/us, and they/them but no
distinction with you and it).
The other alternative for marking the core relations
is to use some form of cross-referencing pronominal representation, usually on the verb or auxiliary

Case 217

verb. The following example is from the northern

Australian language Gunwinygu (Gunwinggu), in
which the first person singular is represented as a
prefix nga- on the verb and the third person plural
by -di-. The -n- indicates that the first person is the
object.
(14) Daluk
ngaye nga-n-di-ma-ng.
woman me
1sg-OBJ-3PL-get-NONPAST
The women will get me.

In this example, the subject and object are represented independently of the verb, but they can be omitted, leaving a sentence meaning, They will get me. The
common situation in languages with cross-referencing
bound pronouns is for the free pronouns to be used
only for emphasis.
Where the function of bound pronominal markers
is indicated by a change of form (affix or suppletion)
as in Gunwinygu, the system seems to be case-like,
and such systems certainly derive from the use of
case marking. But there is an important difference.
Bound pronominal systems represent grammatical
relations, each set being in a one-for-one relationship
with a grammatical relation. Cases are not always in a
one-for-one correspondence with grammatical relations. If that were the situation, we would deal only
in relations and the word forms or markers that express these relations. If, for example, the nominative
forms in Latin expressed only subject, the accusative
only direct object, the dative only indirect object, then
we would talk of subject forms, direct object forms,
and indirect object forms. There would be no need
for the notion of case, just as there is no need for
notional categories between tense markers and tense
categories or aspect markers and aspect categories.
For the peripheral functions, the common alternative is the use of adpositions. Case systems, like other
systems of grammatical forms, are normally relatively
small. They range from two as in the Northwest Caucasian language Kabardian to 15 as in Finnish, but the
number of relations a dependent noun can bear to a
head will exceed these limits, mainly in the area of
relative position (under, over, behind, between,
etc.). As a result, almost all languages use adpositions,
whether they have peripheral cases or not. Where
adpositions are used in addition to case markers,
they form a kind of secondary system. However, in
some languages, such as Japanese, postpositions are
used to the exclusion of case affixes, even covering
core functions. In the following Japanese example,
the postposition ga marks the subject, ni marks the
indirect object, and o marks the direct object:
(15) Sensei ga Tasaku ni hon o yat-ta.
teacher SUBJ Tasaku IO book DO give-PAST
The teacher gave Tasaku a book.

Adpositions can be considered to be analytic case

markers as opposed to synthetic case markers. In
Latin, which is fairly typical of languages having analytic as well as synthetic case markers, prepositions are
like verbs in that they govern cases, and combinations
of preposition and case suffix can serve to mark the
relations of nouns to the verb. In English, all prepositions govern the accusative (with me, from her), but
in some languages, different prepositions govern different cases. In Latin, some prepositions govern the
ablative and others the accusative. The preposition
in can govern both: in casa in the cottage, in casam
into the cottage.
In Malayalam, too, different postpositions govern
different cases. Mutal from governs the nominative
in mala mutal from the mountain, poole like governs the accusative as in ammaye poole be like mother, and kuu<e through governs the locative in janalil
kuu<e through the window. Some postpositions such
as akatte inside govern the genitive as in klassinre
akatte inside the classroom. This reflects the noun
origin of the postposition, where the genitive originally denoted the dependency of a noun to a noun (cf.
English at the side of the classroom).
Given the availability of adpositions, it is not
surprising that many languages have no peripheral
cases. Where a language has the minimal number of
cases, namely two, one finds an unmarked nominative and a marked accusative or marked ergative,
which have other functions and could appropriately
be called oblique. In the Uto-Aztecan language
Chemehuevi, the nominative marks subject, and
the accusative marks object and possessor. In the
Kabardian, the absolutive marks the absolutive relation, and the ergative marks transitive subject and
possessor. The absolutive relation embraces what
from the standpoint of many other languages is intransitive subject and direct object. If a language has
three cases, the third is usually genitive. If it has four,
the fourth, whatever it is called, will tend to have a
wide range of functions. German is typical in this
regard. It has nominative, accusative, genitive, and
dative, but dative is in fact a case with a wide range of
functions, albeit governed by prepositions.
Where case systems are large, more than six or seven,
the expansion is usually among the local cases. Finnish,
for instance has 15 cases, including nine local cases.
These are formed by markers for location, source,
and destination, having partly fused with markers for
interior and exterior, as shown in Table 4.
There are claims that the northeast Caucasian languages have case systems of over 40 members, but in
these languages the orientation markers ( for under,
over, etc.) and the case markers proper are separate
systems. The spectacular figures are obtained

218 Case
Table 4 Finnish local cases

Interior

Exterior

Location

Source

Destination

-na
essive
-ssa
inessive
in
-lla
adessive
at

-tta
partitive
-sta
elative
from(inside)
-lta
ablative
from(outside)

-ksi
translative
-(h) Vn, -sVVn
illative
nto
-lle
allative
to(wards)

by counting combinations of orientation markers

and case markers as members of one system. This is
justified in Finnish where the markers cannot be identified consistently, but not, for the most part, in the
Northeast Caucasian languages.

Types of Marking
Case marking is usually via suffixation. The only
other mechanism that is at all common is suppletion,
as with English pronouns (I/me, etc.). Case suffixes
follow number marking; when pronominal possessors are marked on the noun, these usually appear
before the case marking, as in Turkish, where they
appear between the number marking and the case
marking: adam-larm-la (man-PL-1SG.POSS-LOC)
with my men; similarly in Hungarian: hajo -I-m-on
(ship-PL-1SG.POSS-LOC) on my ships. In the BaltoFinnic languages, however, the possessor marking
usually follows the case marking. In Finnish, for
instance, we find: kirkolla-mme (church-ADESSIVE1PL.POSS) at our church. The adessive case expresses
the sense of near or at.
In some languages, including Indo-European case
languages like Latin and Ancient Greek, case marking
(actually case/number marking in these languages,
as explained above) appears not only on nouns but
also on certain dependents of the noun such as adjectives and determiners. The following example is
from Plato. Bios is a nominative singular form of a
second declension masculine noun, the nominative
indicating that bios is the subject of the predicate.
The definite article and the adjective are in the nominative singular masculine form, their concord in case,
number,and gender indicating that they are dependents of bios.
(16) Ho
anexetastos
bios
the.NOM.SG unexamined.NOM.SG life.NOM.SG
ou
bio tos
anthro po .
not livable.NOM.SG man.DAT.SG
The unexamined life is not livable for man.

This example also illustrates concord between a

predicative adjective (bio tos) and the subject (bios).

Besides concord within the noun phrase and concord exhibited by predicative nominals and adjectives, there is also apparent concord between what
looks like separated parts of a noun phrase. In Latin,
it is possible to take a word that would appear to
modify a noun and express it in a phrase separate
from the noun. The following example is from Virgil
(Aeneid II:3),
(17) Infa ndum,
re gna,
iube s
unspeakable.ACC queen.VOC order.2SG
renova re
dolo rem.
renew.INF sorrow.ACC
Unspeakable, [O] queen, [is] the sorrow you
order [me] to rekindle.

Here the gerundive adjective infa ndum is displaced

from the word it might be thought to modify, namely,
dolo rem. In Australian languages, the noncontiguous
expression of words that would normally appear
within a single noun phrase in most languages is
commonplace.
The other common pattern of case marking is for it
to be found only on the final word in the noun phrase.
We can distinguish two subtypes. In the first, the final
word is the head noun in the noun phrase. This type
is widespread. It is found, for instance, in Quechua.
It is common among the Papuan languages, and there
is a concentration of the type in Asia, including the
Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungusic (Tungus) families
north of the Himalayas, as well as the languages of
the subcontinent, whether they be Dravidian, Munda,
or Indo-Aryan (though a number of Indo-Aryan languages have vestigial concord). In this area, most
languages are consistent modifier-head languages
with SOV order at clause level and determiner-noun,
adjective-noun order at phrase level. The following
example is from the Dravidian language Kannada:
(18) Naanu ellaa maanava
I.NOM
all
human
priitisutteene.
love.1SG
I love all mankind.

janaangavannu
community.ACC

In the other subtype, the final word in the noun

phrase is not always the head. This is the situation in
various Australian and Amazonian languages. The
phenomenon also occurs in Basque:
(19) etxe
zaharr-etan
house old-PL.LOC
in old houses

In a few languages, a nominal can carry more than

one case, each case with different scope, and often
with different functions. Most but not all instances
involve an inner layer of adnominal case plus an outer
layer of concordial adverbal case, as in the following
examples from Old Georgian:

Case 219
(20) sarel-ita
man-isa jta
name-INST father-GEN INST
with fathers name

However, some Australian languages evince double

adverbal case. In Warlpiri, for instance, a locally
marked adjunct may take ergative case marking in
a transitive clause. Consider the contrast between
the following sentences. In (21a), the noun phrase in
the role of destination is marked for allative case, as
one would expect. However, if a verb for carry is
substituted for a verb meaning send, then it is possible to further mark the allative-marked phrase for
ergative:
(21a) Ngarrka-ngku ka
maliki
PRES
dog.ABS
man-ERG
ngurra-kurra yilya-mi.
camp-ALL
send-NONPST
The man is sending the dog to the camp.
(21b) Ngarrka-ngku ka
kuyu
ka-nyi
man-ERG
PRES meat.ABS carry-NONPST
ngurra-kurra (-rlu).
camp-ALL(-ERG)
The man is carrying the meat to the camp.

An inner local phrase normally has the patient as

its scope (and this is normally encoded in the absolutive relation, i.e., as S or O). In Warlpiri, the use of
the ergative on the locally marked phrase is to indicate that the agent (A) is also within its scope. With
carrying, the agent moves to the same destination as
the patient.
Where a clause rather than a noun phrase is a
dependent, the same possibilities for the distribution
of case marking arise. In most instances the case
marker appears only on the head of the clause, namely the verb, as in the following example from Finnish,
where the translative case is found on the infinitive. The translative means into, mainly metaphorically, as in Youll turn into a pumpkin, and
purpose as in mi-ksi what for. With a nominalised
verb, it indicates purpose. The actor of the nominalised verb is expressed by the possessive pronominal
suffix.
(22) Osti-n
karttakirja-n suunnitella-kse-ni
bought-1SG atlas-ACC
plan-TRANS-1SG.POSS
automatka-n.
car.trip-ACC
I bought an atlas in order to plan a car journey.

Another possibility is for the case marking of a

dependent verb to spread to its dependents by
concord. The following example is from Yukulta
(Ganggalida) (Northern Australian). Note that the
dative, which is appropriate to the verb warratj-,
spreads to the allative-marked complement to yield
a second layer of case marking.

(23) Taamitya-ngandi
tangka
ask-1SG.3SG.FU.AUX man.ABS
natha-rul-ngkurlu
warratj-urlu.
camp-ALL-DAT
go-DAT
Ill ask the man to go to the camp.

In some languages there are different principles of

case marking operating in subordinate clauses, particularly if the verb is non-finite. A well-known example is the use of the accusative for the subject as well
as the object in Ancient Greek and Latin accusative
and infinitive constructions. The following example is from Latin, where dominum, the subject of the
verb vdisse is in the accusative as well as the object
co nsulem.
(24) Dicunt dominum co nsulem vdisse.
say.3PL master.ACC consul.ACC see.PERF.INFIN
They say the master has seen [lit. to have seen]
the consul.

In Thalantji (Pama-Nyungan), the dative, which is

the main adnominal case in this language, is used to
mark the complement of transitive verbs in non-finite
relative clauses. Contrast the accusative on kanyara
in the main clause and the dative on murla in the
subordinate clause in (25):
(25) Ngatha nhaku-nha kanyara-nha
I
see-PAST
man-ACC
murla-ku warni-lkitha.
meat-DAT
cut-REL.DS
I saw the man (who was) cutting meat.

The verbal suffix -lkitha in this example glossed

relative, different subject marks a qualifying clause,
the covert subject of which must be interpreted as
being distinct from the main clause subject. The
marker is a case marker in origin. This is an example
of a derived function of case marking.
In Turkish, the genitive is used to mark the subject
of a nominalised verb. The object of such a verb if
present takes the normal case marking.
(26) Ahmed-i
ben-i
sev-dig -in-i
Ahmed-GEN 1SG-ACC love-NM-3SG.POSS.ACC
bil-iyor-um.
know-PRES-1SG
I know that Ahmed loves me.

The form -in is a third singular possessive form

in cross-reference with Ahmed-i. In Turkish, noun
possessors are cross-referenced on possessed nouns:
Biz-im heykel-imiz (we-GEN statue-1PL.POSS) our statue. The accusative on the nominalised verb marks it
as the complement of biliyorum, and the accusative on
ben marks it as the complement of sevmek to love.
See also: Ergativity; Head/Dependent Marking; Inflection

and Derivation.

220 Case

Bibliography
Blake B J (2001). Case (2nd edn.). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Brecht R D & Levine J S (eds.) (1986). Case in Slavic.
Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers.
Comrie B (1986). On delimiting cases. In Brecht R D &
Levine J S (eds.) 86105.
Comrie B (ed.) (1987). The worlds major languages.
London: Croom Helm.
Comrie B (1989). Language universals and linguistic typology. Oxford: Blackwell.
Delancey S (1981). An interpretation of split ergativity and
related patterns. Language 57, 626657.

Dixon R M W (1994). Ergativity. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.
Dixon R M W (2002). Australian languages. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Melcuk I A (1986). Toward a definition of case. In Brecht
R D & Levine J S (eds.). 3585.
Plank F (ed.) (1991). Paradigms: the economy of inflection.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Silverstein M (1976). Hierarchy of features and ergativity.
In Dixon R M W (ed.) Grammatical categories in
Australian languages. Canberra: Australian Institute
of Aboriginal Studies/New Jersey: Humanities Press.
112171.

Case Grammar
J M Anderson, Methoni Messinias, Greece
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Case Grammar is a label used for various developments in grammatical theory originating in the midto-late 1960s that are associated more or less closely
with a certain hypothesis concerning the organization
of the grammar: the hypothesis concerns the status of
semantic functions or relations or roles such as
Agentive or Locative; functions that label the mode of
participation of the denotata of arguments in the
situation described by the predication in which they
occur. The terms various and more or less closely
are used advisedly. Since Case Grammar is a partial
hypothesis, it is compatible with a variety of hypotheses concerning other aspects of the grammar, though
it will, of course, interact with them. Since, too, the
hypothesis can be formulated in more and less strong
forms, not all variants of Case Grammar are as distinct in their claims from what is embodied in other
frameworks that are not usually termed Case Grammars. The minimum Case Grammar hypothesis is
that semantic functions are relevant to the expression
of syntactic (as well as semantic) generalizations; in
a stronger, more interesting and distinctive form it
involves the claim that they are basic to the syntax
and that many other aspects of syntactic structure are
derivative of them.
The name itself is in part a recognition that what is
involved is, again in part, a return to traditional concerns with the semantics and syntax of Case (see Case),
concerns that were neglected by those structuralist (including early transformational) frameworks that abolished the morphology/syntax division and were
reticent about semantics. The term Case Grammar

specifically devolves from Fillmores (1965, 1966,

1968a) use of Case Relation, or simply Case, for
semantic function, the status of which is fundamental
to the Case Grammar hypothesis. In what follows, the
first section outlines some of the basic notions central
to the main tradition associated with this hypothesis;
while the second and third sections give some idea of,
respectively, the variety of interpretation to which it has
been subjected and the range of attempts to arrive at a
definition of Case and Cases.

Some Fundamentals
The use of the term Case (Relation) for semantic
function is based on the familiar observation that in
a number of languages semantic functions are distinguished by differences in nominal inflexion, as in the
Old English sentence of (1):
(1) Him ofhreow s mannes
He/theydat pitied thegen mangen

(cf. again see Case), wherein the dative inflexion signals

the locus of the emotion denoted by the verb (discussed below as the Experiencer Case Relation) and
the genitive inflexion marks the Source of the emotion.
However, it must be acknowledged, as is once more
familiar from earlier studies (cf. e.g., Welte, 1987),
that in many instances the correlation between case
inflexion and semantic function is not simple. Most
notoriously, case inflexions can correlate more closely
with grammatical functions or relations. Notably,
most grammarians would not include Subject among
the set of semantic functions. At the very least, it is of
a rather different character from Agentive, etc.; hence
its differentiation, along with (for many grammarians) Object, etc. as a grammatical relation. The