Lesson 6 - Cases
Cases are forms of nouns and adjectives (and certain other parts of
speech) that are associated with the functions of those words in a sentence.
For instance, in a language with a case system the subject of a sentence is
in the nominative case. Cases are often much dreaded by students of
Latin or Russian because it requires learning by heart various tables with
case endings and then trying to remember which words are declined according
to which table and under which circumstances each case should be used. In
English there is only a rudimentary case system left (but Old English had one
that was quite complicated), but it may still be puzzling to a native speaker
of Thai or Swahili who starts to learn English, that for instance the word
he changes to him when it indicates the object of a sentence!
In view of this it may come as a surprise that Esperanto has a case system
too, since it is supposed to have been designed as a language that should be
easy to learn! However, the Esperanto case system is very simple with only
two cases (which is one less than English has), and it is perfectly regular.
All words that we have seen until now were in the nominative case,
which is among other things used to indicate the subject of a sentence. The
ending for singular nouns is the familiar ending -o and for plural
nouns it is -oj. And for adjectives the endings are -a and
-aj respectively. The other Esperanto case is the accusative case, and
the accusative can be formed by adding the ending -n to the nominative
ending.
But why do we need case endings anyway, no matter how simple they are? The
reason is that there are no rules in the Esperanto grammar that prescribe
the word order in a sentence. When looking at the English sentence "The dog
bit the cat" we naturally assume that it was the dog that bit and that the
cat was bitten. The reason is that in an English sentence the subject (the
dog) usually precedes the direct object (the cat), and therefore there is no
real need to use another instrument to show who bit whom. Nevertheless,
special case forms are still used sometimes, as in "She bit him" where
him is the oblique case form of he). But you cannot give rules
for word order, even for an artificial language, in just a few lines, and it
is probably for this reason that Zamenhof decided to allow the word order in
Esperanto to be as free as possible (within the boundaries dictated by common
sense of course). And since word order cannot be used as an instrument to
indicate the functions of words in Esperanto, those functions have to be
indicated in another way.
Now, when do we use the nominative case, and when the accusative case? The
accusative is used in to indicate the direct object of a sentence. Using the
accusative case to differentiate between the direct object and the subject of
a sentence, prevents ambiguities, no matter how the order of the words is
varied:
La hundo mordis la katon = The dog bit the cat.
La katon mordis la hundo = The dog bit the cat (lit.: The cat bit the
dog).
La hundo la katon mordis = The dog bit the cat (lit.: The dog the cat
bit).
Mordis la hundo la katon = The dog bit the cat (lit.: Bit the dog the
cat).
Nevertheless, in most cases the order subject - verb - object is used,
and other ways of arranging the words are usually limited to poetry or cases
in which you want to emphasize a word by starting the sentence with it.
The accusative is used in a few more cases but for the time being we shall
assume that it is only used for indicating the direct object. All else that
we need to know now is that the nominative is used when the accusative is not
applicable. But what about the indirect object, as in "She gave him
a kiss" in which him is the indirect object of the sentence? Well,
this sentence can be re-phrased as "She gave a kiss to him". This
method of indicating the indirect object with a preposition is the only
possible method in Esperanto. The equivalent of the English to is
al, which we already encountered with the meaning to with regard
to movement. And since the word him is not the direct object here
(kiss is), the accusative case cannot be used in Esperanto and
therefore, by default, the nominative must be used:
Shi donis al li kison = She gave (to) him a kiss.
Note that you can change the order of the words (e.g. "Al li shi donis
kison" but you cannot drop al like you could leave out to
in the English translation!
Not only nouns and adjectives can get an accusative ending. Pronouns are
declined too, just as in English. The difference is that in Esperanto the
declension is not the irregular I/me, you/you, he/him,
etc. of English, but just mi/min, vi/vin, li/lin, etc.
Here are a few more examples of the use of cases:
Mi volas acheti novan domon = I want to buy a new house.
Ni havas multajn pomojn = We have many apples.
Shi donis al mi la flavajn pomojn = She gave me the yellow
apples.
Shi kisis min = She kissed me.
Vocabulary
| Esperanto | English |
|---|
| acheti | to buy |
| devi | to have to |
| doni | to give (cf. donate) |
| havi | to have |
| hundo | a dog |
| kisi | to kiss |
| kiso | a kiss |
| manghi | to eat (cf. manger) |
| mordi | to bite (cf. mordant) |
| vendi | to sell (cf. vend) |
| piro | a pear |
| vidi | to see (cf. video) |
Exercise 6-1
Translate into English:
1. Li vendis al ni pomojn, pirojn kaj terpomojn. 2. La hundo vidis la katon
sur la tablon. 3. Mi volas doni kison al shi. 4. Vi devas doni al mi la
plantojn. 5. Ni manghis multajn pomojn. 6. La viro vendis terpomojn. 7. Ili
havas multajn grandajn hundojn. 8. La hundo mordis min. 9. Ili manghos la
pirojn kaj la pomojn. 10. Shi vendos al ilin sian domon. 11. Vi devas manghi
multajn pomojn. 12. Li volas havi nigran au blankan auton.
Exercise 6-2
Translate into Esperanto:
1. She gave the pears to her children. 2. He kissed her in the garden. 3. He
has bought a green car. 4. He must give the water to the dog. 5. I saw the
cat on the table. 6. His dog wanted to bite him. 7. We shall buy a new car.
8. He sold his car to us. 9. I shall give her a kiss. 10. He wants to buy a
green chair but I want to buy a black one.
Key to the exercises