Case is a grammatical category determined by the syntactic or semantic function of a noun or pronoun.
The term case has traditionally been restricted to apply to only those languages which indicate certain functions by the inflection of:
The term is sometimes extended to include such functions expressed by adpositions.
(Latin)
The Latin sentences Canis hominem mordet ‘Dog bites man’ and Canem homo mordet ‘Man bites dog’, illustrate that differing case endings express the differing functions of the nouns in Latin.
(Japanese)
In the following sentence, case is indicated by the case markers ga, ni, and o:
This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library. Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003.