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Vocative case
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Vocative case
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated VOC) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals) of that noun. A noun of address is an expression of direct address by which the identity of the party spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence. For example, in the sentence "I don't know, John," John is a noun of address that indicates the party being addressed, as opposed to the sentence "I don't know John", in which "John" is the direct object of the verb "know".
Historically, the vocative case was an element of the Indo-European case system and existed in Latin, Sanskrit, and Ancient Greek. In many modern Indo-European languages (English, Spanish, etc.) the vocative case has been absorbed by the nominative, but others still distinguish it, including the Baltic languages, some Celtic languages and most Slavic languages. Some linguists, such as Albert Thumb, argue that the vocative form is not a case but a special form of nouns not belonging to any case, as nouns of address are not related syntactically to other words in sentences. Pronouns usually lack vocative forms.
Distinct vocative forms are assumed to have existed in all early Indo-European languages and survive in some. Here is, for example, the Indo-European word for "wolf" in various languages:
The elements separated with hyphens denote the stem, the so-called thematic vowel of the case and the actual suffix. In Latin, for example, the nominative case is lupus and the vocative case is lupe, but the accusative case is lupum. The asterisks before the Proto-Indo-European words means that they are theoretical reconstructions and are not attested in a written source. The symbol ◌̩ (vertical line below) indicates a consonant serving as a vowel (it should appear directly below the "l" or "r" in these examples but may appear after them on some systems from issues of font display). All final consonants were lost in Proto-Slavic, so both the nominative and vocative Old Church Slavonic forms do not have true endings, only reflexes of the old thematic vowels.
Vocative singulars in Slavic languages appear to be irregular as a consequence of the Slavic first palatalization, which caused *k, *g and *x, when followed by an *e (as in the vocative suffix), to become č, ž, and š, respectively. Some modern Slavic languages have replaced these forms with a more regular vocative ending, so for example in Czech the usual masculine animate vocative is -e, except for roots ending in velar consonants, where it is now usually -u (e.g. chlap > chlape, but vlk > vlku). This is an instance of the paradigmatic complexity introduced into Slavic by successive waves of palatalisation, with some languages retaining more complex or irregular paradigms (such as Czech), and others tending towards simplification and regularization (such as Russian, which has lost the vocative as a productive case entirely).
The vocative is distinct in singular and identical to the nominative in the plural, for all inflected nouns. Nouns with a nominative singular ending in -a have a vocative singular usually identically written but distinct in accentuation.
In Lithuanian, the form that a given noun takes depends on its declension class and, sometimes, on its gender. There have been several changes in history, the last being the -ai ending formed between the 18th and 19th centuries. The older forms are listed under "other forms".
Some nouns of the e- and a- stems declensions (both proper ones and not) are stressed differently: "aikštė": "aikšte!" (square); "tauta": "tauta!". In addition, nouns of e-stems have an ablaut of long vowel ė in nominative and short vowel e /ɛ/ in vocative. In pronunciation, ė is close-mid vowel [eː], and e is open-mid vowel /ɛ/.
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Vocative case
In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated VOC) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals) of that noun. A noun of address is an expression of direct address by which the identity of the party spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence. For example, in the sentence "I don't know, John," John is a noun of address that indicates the party being addressed, as opposed to the sentence "I don't know John", in which "John" is the direct object of the verb "know".
Historically, the vocative case was an element of the Indo-European case system and existed in Latin, Sanskrit, and Ancient Greek. In many modern Indo-European languages (English, Spanish, etc.) the vocative case has been absorbed by the nominative, but others still distinguish it, including the Baltic languages, some Celtic languages and most Slavic languages. Some linguists, such as Albert Thumb, argue that the vocative form is not a case but a special form of nouns not belonging to any case, as nouns of address are not related syntactically to other words in sentences. Pronouns usually lack vocative forms.
Distinct vocative forms are assumed to have existed in all early Indo-European languages and survive in some. Here is, for example, the Indo-European word for "wolf" in various languages:
The elements separated with hyphens denote the stem, the so-called thematic vowel of the case and the actual suffix. In Latin, for example, the nominative case is lupus and the vocative case is lupe, but the accusative case is lupum. The asterisks before the Proto-Indo-European words means that they are theoretical reconstructions and are not attested in a written source. The symbol ◌̩ (vertical line below) indicates a consonant serving as a vowel (it should appear directly below the "l" or "r" in these examples but may appear after them on some systems from issues of font display). All final consonants were lost in Proto-Slavic, so both the nominative and vocative Old Church Slavonic forms do not have true endings, only reflexes of the old thematic vowels.
Vocative singulars in Slavic languages appear to be irregular as a consequence of the Slavic first palatalization, which caused *k, *g and *x, when followed by an *e (as in the vocative suffix), to become č, ž, and š, respectively. Some modern Slavic languages have replaced these forms with a more regular vocative ending, so for example in Czech the usual masculine animate vocative is -e, except for roots ending in velar consonants, where it is now usually -u (e.g. chlap > chlape, but vlk > vlku). This is an instance of the paradigmatic complexity introduced into Slavic by successive waves of palatalisation, with some languages retaining more complex or irregular paradigms (such as Czech), and others tending towards simplification and regularization (such as Russian, which has lost the vocative as a productive case entirely).
The vocative is distinct in singular and identical to the nominative in the plural, for all inflected nouns. Nouns with a nominative singular ending in -a have a vocative singular usually identically written but distinct in accentuation.
In Lithuanian, the form that a given noun takes depends on its declension class and, sometimes, on its gender. There have been several changes in history, the last being the -ai ending formed between the 18th and 19th centuries. The older forms are listed under "other forms".
Some nouns of the e- and a- stems declensions (both proper ones and not) are stressed differently: "aikštė": "aikšte!" (square); "tauta": "tauta!". In addition, nouns of e-stems have an ablaut of long vowel ė in nominative and short vowel e /ɛ/ in vocative. In pronunciation, ė is close-mid vowel [eː], and e is open-mid vowel /ɛ/.