In linguistics, case government is government of the grammatical case of a noun, wherein a verb or adposition is said to 'govern' the grammatical case of its noun phrase complement, e.g. in German the preposition für 'for' governs the accusative case: für mich 'for me-accusative'.[1] Case government may modify the meaning of the verb substantially, even to meanings that are unrelated.

Case government is an important notion in languages with many case distinctions, such as Russian and Finnish. It plays less of a role in English, because English does not rely on grammatical cases, except for distinguishing subject pronouns (I, he, she, we, they) from other pronouns (me, him, her, us, them). In English, true case government is absent, but if the aforementioned subject pronouns are understood as regular pronouns in the accusative case, it occurs in sentences such as He found me (not for example *He found I).

Adpositions

In Standard German, there are prepositions which govern each of the three oblique cases: Accusative, Dative, and Genitive. Case marking in German is largely observed on elements which modify the noun (e.g. determiners, adjectives). In the following table, examples of Löffel 'spoon' (Masculine), Messer 'knife' (Neuter), and Gabel 'fork' (Feminine) are in definite noun phrases for each of the four cases. In the oblique cases (i.e. non-Nominative), the prepositions supplied dictate different cases: ohne 'without' governs the accusative, mit 'with' governs the dative, and wegen 'because of' governs the genitive:[2]

Case Gender
Masculine Neuter Feminine
Nominative

der

the.M.NOM

Löffel

spoon

der Löffel

the.M.NOM spoon

'the spoon'

das

the.N.NOM

Messer

knife

das Messer

the.N.NOM knife

'the knife'

die

the.F.NOM

Gabel

fork

die Gabel

the.F.NOM fork

'the fork'

Accusative

ohne

without

den

the.M.ACC

Löffel

spoon

ohne den Löffel

without the.M.ACC spoon

'without the spoon'

ohne

without

das

the.N.ACC

Messer

knife

ohne das Messer

without the.N.ACC knife

'without the knife'

ohne

without

die

the.F.ACC

Gabel

fork

ohne die Gabel

without the.F.ACC fork

'without the fork'

Dative

mit

with

dem

the.M.DAT

Löffel

spoon

mit dem Löffel

with the.M.DAT spoon

'with the spoon'

mit

with

dem

the.N.DAT

Messer

knife

mit dem Messer

with the.N.DAT knife

'with the knife'

mit

with

der

the.F.DAT

Gabel

fork

mit der Gabel

with the.F.DAT fork

'with the fork'

Genitive

wegen

because.of

des

the.M.GEN

Löffel-s

spoon-M.GEN

wegen des Löffel-s

because.of the.M.GEN spoon-M.GEN

'because of the spoon'

wegen

because.of

des

the.N.GEN

Messer-s

knife-N.GEN

wegen des Messer-s

because.of the.N.GEN knife-N.GEN

'because of the knife'

wegen

because.of

der

the.F.GEN

Gabel

fork

wegen der Gabel

because.of the.F.GEN fork

'because of the fork'

There are also two-way prepositions which govern the dative when the prepositional phrase denotes location (where at?), but the accusative when it denotes direction (to/from where?).

a.

in

in

sein-em

his-M.DAT

Palast

palace

in sein-em Palast

in his-M.DAT palace

'in his palace'

b.

in

in

sein-en

his-M.ACC

Palast

palace

in sein-en Palast

in his-M.ACC palace

'into his palace'

Verbs

In Finnish, certain verbs or groups of verbs require associated objects to employ particular cases or case-like suffixes regardless of the circumstances in which a case is normally used. For example, certain verbs expressing emotions such as rakastaa (to love), inhota (to hate), and pelätä (to fear) require the use of the partitive case: thus, "Minä rakastan sinua" (I love you), in which "sinua" is partitive although a complete concrete entity as object would normally take the genitive. A number of verbs associated with sensory perception such as maistua (to taste) and kuulostaa (to sound) employ the ablative-like suffix -lta/-ltä: "Jäätelö maistuu hyvältä" (Ice cream tastes good). And certain verbs referring to interests or hobbies such as pitää (to like) and nauttia (to enjoy) use the elative-like suffix -sta/-stä.[3]

In books on Finnish grammar written in Finnish the phenomenon of case government is usually referred to as "rektio", from the Latin rēctiō (control or governance).

See also

References

  1. Bussmann 1996, p. 159.
  2. Due to the increasing rarity of the genitive in colloquial speech, prepositions governing the genitive may colloquially take on the dative.
  3. Gehring, Sonja; Heinzmann, Sanni (2012). Suomen Mestari 2. Finn Lectura. ISBN 978-951-1-35579-3.
  • Bussmann, Hadumon (1996). Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics. Translated by Trauth, Gregory; Kazzazi, Kerstin. Routledge.
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