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Cases - Latin and English Differences - Cases

Cases Differences Between Latin and English

By N.S. Gill, About.com

In English we have subjects, objects, and a possessive form. "I" is a subject pronoun. "Me" is an object pronoun. "My" is a pronoun in the possessive case. These are the three cases recognized in English. In English, we also have a very limited vocative case used for yelling at people: "Yo!" Latin also has a vocative case. Our indirect objects are objects of prepositions, as in "to him" where "him" is the object of the preposition "to". In Latin the indirect object case is different from the prepositional cases, and there are two prepositional cases. There is also an infrequently used Latin case called the locative that is used only with certain words without a preposition to show place where.

English vs. Latin

  1. Subject vs Nominative Case
    Mother vs mater
  2. Possessive vs Genitive Case
    Mother's vs matris
  3. Indirect Object (preposition) vs Dative Case
    To mother vs matri
  4. Objective vs Accusative Case
    Mother vs matrem
  5. Objective (preposition) vs Accusative/Ablative (preposition)
    Mother vs matrem/matre
  6. e.g., "Mommy!" vs. Vocative Case
    Mother vs mater
  7. ---- vs. Locative (place)
    --- vs Romae
Please let me know if I've made an error.

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