Re: The accusitive case

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 16:11:40 GMT

Quoted: In British English -- or so I believe -- sometimes the practice is the opposite: the British might say "I gave it him" -- where "it" (the direct object) comes first.

It would be "I gave it to him" in Standard British English.

In some regional British accents, say Yorkshire; then the "to" might be dropped, as it is implied.

Your other sentance "I gave him a spoon." would also pass as Standard British.

(Though more commonly you'd hear: "I gave a spoon to him" or "I have given him a spoon")

Re: The accusitive case

Mike A. — Tue, 18 Nov 2003 19:16:28 GMT

The first thing to note is the spelling: the correct spelling is a-c-c-u-s-a-t-i-v-e. Another thing to note is that the term often employed to identify the "case" of words like "him", "her" and "whom" is Objective, rather than Accusative (which is misleading in a simplified grammar like English's.)

Unlike German, English doesn't really have a well-developed Dative or Accusative case. We used to have those cases at an earlier stage of the language's development, but now those cases are only vestigial. Our "allgemein" Objective case, where it exists at all, performs both Dative and Accusative functions. What gives you the difference in meaning is generally word order.

For example, in the sentence "I gave him a spoon" -- which in German would be something like "Ich gab ihm einen Loeffel" -- "him" is a word in the Objective case, but it is clearly performing a dative function here. If you want to, you can decide that "him" is in the Dative case, but in English grammar it doesn't make much sense to think of a Dative case. We know that "him" is the indirect object of the verb -- i.e., performs a dative function -- because it *precedes* what is obviously the direct object, "spoon". Note that "spoon", the direct object, is unmarked by case ending, unlike the German.

On the other hand, in a sentence like "I saw him yesterday" -- which in German would be "Ich sah ihn gestern" -- it's the same word "him", in the same Objective case, but since there is no possible role for "him" in this sentence other than the direct object, you know that it has to be the direct object.

In American English, the normal practice would be for indirect objects to precede the direct objects: "I gave him a spoon." In British English -- or so I believe -- sometimes the practice is the opposite: the British might say "I gave it him" -- where "it" (the direct object) comes first.

Hope this helps.

Mike

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Re: The accusitive case

Re: The accusitive case