Does the English language have cases?

[Bob]

I don't remember hearing about cases growing up.  I do remember direct and indirect objects which is the same thing or similar idea.

Nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, more?   Except I don't think English calls it 'dative' so we don't have that, even though we have indirect objects.

Nominative case = subject
accustiave = direct object
dative = indirect object
gentivie = possesive
more?


Maybe there's an English grammar expert here or someone who studied English as a second language here would know -- Where you taught cases being in English?

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

I'm definitely not a grammar expert.
 But I did a little research on this  before. I don't think English really has cases-- we don't change the noun depending on its role in the sentence. We mostly rely on prepositions and syntax. I think Old English had cases though.... A few years ago I wanted to try and learn Old English.

[ongaku_oniko]

okay, just what exactly are you guys talking about?

Why did bob have to bring up these weird rules that you never ever need to use in real life to confuse me?


to answer the question:

We do have cases, upper case and lower case

[Bob]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case

I do remember hearing something about English losing its cases.


I ran into a junior high English lesson that had things I didn't quite understand.  Or agree with.  It was about which pronoun was correct and those were in clauses or parts of the sentence.... maybe the indirect object or some kind of clause or prepositional phrase....   I can't imagine too many of kids understood it.

Would there be a prepositional case too?


This has English included in some cases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grammatical_cases

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case

I do remember hearing something about English losing its cases.


I ran into a junior high English lesson that had things I didn't quite understand.  Or agree with.  It was about which pronoun was correct and those were in clauses or parts of the sentence.... maybe the indirect object or some kind of clause or prepositional phrase....   I can't imagine too many of kids understood it.

 

When in doubt, check wikipedia I'm going to read that when I have time!

I don't think I'd understand it. Where I live... grammar is hardly taught in schools at all. The most complex grammar we probably learned was "what is a preposition?"   Direct/ indirect objects??? ... I learned about that in French class  

Prepositional case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepositional_case

This has English included in some cases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_grammatical_cases

Ok then I'm wrong  like I said I'm not an expert. I'm still in high school!
Let me correct myself. I guess what I was trying to say is English doesn't have different endings for different cases for nouns. Although I see people debating on whether 's to show possession is a case ending or not... but I'm pretty sure it does not count.

From what I've read, English doesn't differentiate between cases for *nouns*, but it does for pronouns.
Like knowing when to use me/ I, him/he  

Can some linguist please come to this thread? I'm interested.
Must make up for all the grammar I didn't study.

[retrouvailles]

Every language has the same number of cases, including English. However, in English's case, many cases are implied (or understood by the listener), sometimes with the help of prepositions, and there is no declension or other alteration of the original word. However, there are a few cases of declension, such as for the possessive case ("I vs. my"). This is in stark contrast to languages like Latin and Finnish, where words are declined and altered routinely. I've studied linguistics for a while (it's a small passion of mine), and English has probably the least amount of "word-alteration" that I have seen of the languages I have studied. This can make learning other languages tiresome and difficult for native English speakers. We only really have to memorize how to make words plural and how to make possessives and all of the irregulars. Compare it to Finnish (and other highly agglutinative languages), where there are at least 16 ways to alter a word for certain cases (not to mention irregulars)!

[oxy60]

Every language has the same number of cases, including English. However, in English's case, many cases are implied (or understood by the listener), sometimes with the help of prepositions, and there is no declension or other alteration of the original word. However, there are a few cases of declension, such as for the possessive case ("I vs. my"). This is in stark contrast to languages like Latin and Finnish, where words are declined and altered routinely. I've studied linguistics for a while (it's a small passion of mine), and English has probably the least amount of "word-alteration" that I have seen of the languages I have studied. This can make learning other languages tiresome and difficult for native English speakers. We only really have to memorize how to make words plural and how to make possessives and all of the irregulars. Compare it to Finnish (and other highly agglutinative languages), where there are at least 16 ways to alter a word for certain cases (not to mention irregulars)!

It has also made English the default language of the EU.

There was an Italian and a Frenchman sitting in my compartment on the train trying to converse in English. During a beverage pause I asked them why they work so hard trying to speak English when between their two languages are over 50,000 common words. Their answer, English is just easier!

Case closed.

[jesc]

Quite true. I'm a proponent for the preservation of the "purity" of my native language. Unfortunately, time and again I found myself translating the "English" thought into my native language a lot more complicated than just saying it in "English".

[minor9th]

Pronouns have a subject/object form, but that's about it.

who=subject
whom=object
he/she=subject
him/her=object
we=subject
us=object
I-subject
me=object
they=subject
them=object

There's also a possessive form for each, but my head hurts too much to deal with it now!