Accusative case definition: The accusative case is an English grammatical case that is used to show the direct object of a verb.
What is the Accusative Case?
The accusative case is a grammatical case for nouns and pronouns. It shows the relationship of a direct object to a verb.
A direct object is the recipient of a verb. The subject of the sentence does something to the direct object, and the direct object is placed after the verb in a sentence. Let’s look at an example.
Accusative Case Examples:
- She bought a car.
- Subject: she
- Verb: bought
- Direct object: a car
- John hit the ball
- Subject: John
- Verb: hit
- Direct object: the ball
Intro to Cases
Case is the grammatical category for the inflection of nouns and pronouns that shows the relationship of those nouns and pronouns to other words in a sentence. There are four main cases in English.
Nominative Case
What is the nominative case? The nominative case refers to the case used for a noun or pronoun when it is the subject of a verb.
- We cooked our dinner.
- Subject/Nominative case: We
- Verb: cooked
Genitive Case
What is the genitive case? The genitive case refers to the case used for a noun, pronoun, or adjective to show ownership or a noun.
- We cooked our dinner.
- Possessive pronoun/Genitive case: our
- Possessed noun: dinner
Accusative Case
What is the accusative case? The accusative case refers to the case used for a noun or pronoun that is a direct object.
- We cooked our dinner.
- Verb: cooked
- Direct object: dinner
Dative Case
What is the dative case? The dative case refers to the case used for a noun or pronoun that is an indirect object.
- We cooked dinner for you.
- Verb: cooked
- Direct object: a dinner
- Indirect object in the dative case: you
Accusative Case vs. Nominative Case
The nominative case is the case used for subjects completing an action.
The accusative case is used for nouns that are the recipients of the action the subject completes. To find the direct object in the accusative case, ask “What?” after the verb.
Examples:
- We read a book.
- “We” is the subject in the nominative case.
- “read” is the action the subject is completing
- Find direct object in the accusative case: We read WHAT?
- “a book” is the object in the accusative case
- They ate cookies.
- “They” is the subject in the nominative case.
- “ate” is the action the subject is completing
- Find direct object in the accusative case: They ate WHAT?
- “cookies” is the object in the accusative case
The nominative case is also called the subjective case. Furthermore, the accusative case is a part of the objective case.
Prepositions Can Take the Accusative Case
In English, prepositions can take the accusative case.
When a word is an object of the preposition, the accusative case should be used.
The object of a preposition is the noun that follows a preposition in a prepositional phrase. In its simplest form, a prepositional phrase is a preposition followed by a noun (for me). To put it in more technical terms, a prepositional phrase consists of a preposition, its object, as well as any modifiers that may be present (during the lightning storm).
The following examples show prepositional phrases with objects in the accusative case.
- for me
- to you
- with her
- along it
- near us
- around them
- by whom
Summary
Define accusative case: the definition of accusative case is the noun or pronoun case denoting the person or thing acted on by a verb; the grammatical case used to show the direct object of a verb.
To sum up, the accusative case,
- refers to nouns or pronouns used as direct objects of verbs
- is the same as the objective case
is also used for objects of prepositions
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