- Nominative (nominative),
- Genitive (genitive),
- Partial (partitive)
- Dative (dative),
- Accusative (accusative),
- Creative (instrumentalis),
- Prepositional (prepositive);
- Local (locative, prepositional form in - at);
- Vocative form(vocative)
Vocative case, vocative(lat. vocative) - a special form of a name (most often a noun) used to identify the object being addressed. The name of this form “case” is conditional, because in a strictly grammatical sense the vocative form is not a case.
Historically, the vocative form was an element of the Indo-European case system and existed in Latin, Sanskrit, and Ancient Greek. Although it was subsequently lost by many modern Indo-European languages, some languages have preserved it to this day, examples of which are Greek, Gypsy, many Slavic languages (Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Serbian, etc.) and some Celtic languages (Scottish and Irish), Baltic languages (for example: Latvian and Lithuanian). Of the Romance vocative forms, only the Romanian language survives. It is also present in some non-Indo-European languages such as Georgian, Arabic and Korean.
Russian language
In modern Russian, it exists in the form of several archaisms, mostly included in phraseological units and other speech formulas ( God, To the Creator, God, Jesus, Christ, lord, metropolitan, to the doctor, older, father, brother, son, friend, prince, humanely and others). It has been lost in modern literary language.
At the same time, sometimes "modern vocative case" word forms with zero endings of first declension nouns are understood as Mish, Linen, Tan, Marin, granny, mom, dad etc., that is, coinciding in form with the plural declension of the genitive case.
In the Old Russian language, nouns had the vocative case only in the singular and only in the masculine and feminine gender, but not in the neuter gender (since the latter was a remnant of the Indo-European “inanimate gender” and by origin denoted only inanimate objects). The vocative case was formed as follows:
- Ancient base on -a:
O after a hard consonant, -e after a soft consonant: wife! sister! soul! de vice!
- Ancient base on -o:
E after a hard consonant, -yu after a soft one: older! father! horse! Igor!
- Ancient stem in -u:
U: honey! son!
- Ancient stem in -i:
And: nights! lights! God!
In addition, in the process of word change, there was an alternation of consonants according to the first palatalization: k - h (man - man), g - z (god - god, friend - friend), x - c (vlah - vlase).
In other declensions, the vocative case coincided with the nominative case.
The vocative case is sometimes found in literature or for the purpose of archaization ( “What do you want, elder?”- Pushkin), or in quotes from Church Slavonic texts and prayers ( "Heavenly King, save me..."- Lermontov), or for the “Ukrainization” of the speech of Ukrainian heroes ( “Turn around, son!”- Gogol; “Where are you from, man?”; “I, dad, fled from Balta”- Bagritsky).
Latvian
In the Latvian language, the vocative case is important to remember for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th declensions.
For example:
For V, VI classes. The vocative case is formed only when the word has a diminutive suffix; when it is formed, the ending is discarded. For example: Ilze - Ilz It e-Ilz It!, zivs - zivt iņš-zivt iņ!
For the plural, the vocative case is the same as the nominative.
Ukrainian language
In the Ukrainian language, as in its basis - Old Russian, a separate vocative case has been preserved ( personal information or personal form) - for the singular of the first, second and third declension. In the plural, as well as in the fourth declension, it coincides with the nominative case, with the exception of “panove”, the vocative case of the plural of the word “pan” (“lord”), which corresponds to the Russian address “gentlemen”.
In the first declension the endings -о, -е, -є, -у are used: Mother - mom, Earth - earth, Maria - Marie, granny - grandma.
In the second declension the endings -у, -у, -е are used: dad - dad, Andriy - Andriy, Dmitro - Dmitra.
In the third declension the ending -e is used: nothing - at night. However, third declension nouns are usually inanimate and are not used in the vocative case.
Belarusian language
Usually in the modern Belarusian language (the so-called “Narkomovsky” or official version) there is no separate vocative case.
Supporters of the “classical” version of the Belarusian language (Tarashkevitsy), on the contrary, usually emphasize the vocative case as a distinctive feature of the Belarusian language from Russian.
Polish language
In Polish, the vocative case (usually called the "vocal form", wołacz) is preserved for all masculine and feminine singular nouns. When applied to neuter nouns (second declension) and plurals of all genders, it completely coincides with the nominative.
The endings of singular nouns of the first declension (masculine, ending in a consonant in the nominative case) depend on the final sound of the stem. If this sound is hard, then it softens and/or alternates, and the ending will be - "e, for example: chłop - chłopie, naród - narodzie, autor - autorze (Exceptions: dom - domu, syn - synu, dziad - dziadu). A similar ending is observed in words with a stem ending in -ec, for example chłopiec - chłopcze. If the final sound of the stem is soft, back-lingual (-k, -g) or hardened (-rz, -cz, etc.) - the ending is -u: koń - koniu, robotnik - robotniku.
Third declension nouns (masculine -a, -o, feminine -a, -i) in the singular vocative end in -o: żona - żono, poeta - poeto.
Nouns of the fourth declension (feminine, in the nominative case ending in a consonant) in the singular vocative end in -i: powieść - powieści.
Bulgarian language
Latin language
In Latin, the vocative case (Casus Vocativus) of nouns coincides with the nominative in all cases except one: if the noun of the second declension singular in I.p. ends in -us, then in the vocative case it will end in -e: I.p. barbarus (barbarian) - Star.p. barbare. Moreover, if the stem of a noun ends in -i (that is, the noun ends in -ius), then in the vocative case it has a zero ending: I.p. Demetrius, Star.p. Demetri.
Recently I came across a mention of the fact that in the Russian language there are more cases than the six that we studied at school. I began to dig further and, in general, counted as many as thirteen of them. This allowed me to deeply understand the essence of the concepts of case and declension, and to fall in love with the Russian language even more.
We more or less “know everything” about the six official cases, so I’ll immediately write about what I managed to dig up about the other seven: quantitative-severative, conditional, expectative, locative, vocative, inflective and counting. I will comment on everything without citing sources, because I don’t remember them at all; All this information can be collected bit by bit by feeding Yandex the names of the cases and paying attention to the fact that in the places found they are talking about the Russian language. In all my discussions I will use my own sense of language, so I cannot promise absolute correctness, but I hope that all this will be interesting to someone. I will be very glad to receive competent comments or simply the opinions of sympathizers.
Quantitative-separating the case is a type of genitive, in the sense that it answers its own questions and indicates some of its functions. Sometimes it can be easily replaced by a genitive, but sometimes it will sound clumsy. For example, should I offer you a cup of (who? what?) tea or (who? what?) tea? Please note that of the classical six cases, the form “tea” falls under the dative case (to whom? what?), but here it answers the question of the genitive (whom? what?). Some will say that the form “tea” sounds somewhat archaic, rustic. Not sure if this is true; I would rather say “tea” than “tea”, or even reformulate the sentence to use the accusative case (“Will you have some tea?”). Here’s another example: “pump up the heat.” Country style? I think no. And the option “set the heat” hurts the ears. More examples: “pour juice”, “speed up”.
Depriving the case is used together with the negation of the verb in phrases like “not to know the truth” (but “to know the truth”), “not to have the right” (but “to have the right”). It cannot be said that in the version with negation we use the genitive case, because in some cases the words remain in the accusative form: “not drive a car” (not cars), “don’t drink vodka” (not vodka). This case arises only if we believe that each function of a noun must correspond to one specific case. Then the deprivative case is a case whose forms can correspond to the forms of the genitive or accusative. Sometimes they are interchangeable, but in some cases it is noticeably more convenient for us to use only one of the two options, which speaks in favor of the emptive case. For example, “not a step back” (implying “not to do”) sounds much more Russian than “not a step back.”
Waiting case is a rather complex phenomenon. We can wait (fear, beware, be embarrassed) for someone or something, that is, it seems that we should use the genitive case with these verbs. However, sometimes this genitive suddenly takes the form of an accusative. For example, we are waiting for (who? what?) a letter, but (who? what?) mom. But on the contrary, “wait for a letter” or “wait for mom” is somehow not in Russian (especially the second one). Of course, if these forms are considered acceptable, then there is no waitative case; it’s just that with the verb wait (and its brothers) you can use both the genitive and accusative cases. However, if these forms are not recognized as acceptable (which I personally am inclined to do), then the expectant case arises, which for some words coincides with the genitive, and for others with the accusative. In this case, we need a criterion for how to inflect a given word.
Let's try to understand the difference between the expressions “wait for a letter” and “wait for mom.” When we are waiting for a letter, we do not expect any activity from the letter. We are not waiting the letter itself, namely letters, delivery of a letter, arrival of a letter, that is, some phenomenon associated with its appearance in our mailbox. Writing plays a passive role here. But when we are waiting for our mother, we are not waiting for “the taxi driver to deliver my mother to our meeting place,” but rather for the mother herself, hoping that she will hurry to arrive on time (and it is quite possible that she will use a taxi). That is, it turns out that if an object expressed by a noun can influence its own appearance, then we wait for it in the form of the accusative case (he will be “guilty” if he is late), and if the object itself cannot do anything, then we We are already waiting in the form of a genitive. Perhaps this has something to do with the concept of animacy? It may well be that this happens; for example, in the accusative case there is also a similar effect - for inanimate objects in the second declension it coincides with the nominative (“sit on a chair”).
Local case is the most understandable of all special cases. It exists, it is used by each of us, its forms are obvious, they cannot be replaced with other words, and therefore it is very strange that it is not included in the school list. The prepositional case has two functions (there are more, but we will ignore this): indicating the object of speech and indicating the place or time of action. For example, you can talk about (who? what?) the square, and you can stand on (who? what?) the square, think about (who? what?) the room and be in (who? what?) the room. The first case is called the “explanatory case”, and the second is called the “local case”. For a square and a room, these forms do not depend on function. But, for example, at the nose, forest, snow, paradise, year - it depends. We're talking about the nose, but the weekend is right around the corner; We think about the year, but birthdays only come once a year. You can't walk in the forest, you can only walk in the forest.
The funny thing is that here the case is controlled not by the preposition, but by the meaning. That is, if we come up with a construction with the preposition “in”, when being in the corresponding place is not meant, we will definitely want to use the explanatory rather than the locative case. For example, “I know a lot about the forest.” If you say “I know a lot about the forest,” then it immediately seems that you only know a lot when you are in the forest, and, moreover, you forgot to say what exactly you know a lot about.
Vocative case is used when referring to the object expressed by a noun. Two groups of examples are given in different sources. One group includes short forms of names used only when addressing (Vasya, Kol, Pet, Len, Ol) and some other words (mam, dad). Another group includes outdated (female) or religious (god, lord) forms of address. I don't like the idea of treating it as a case because I don't think the resulting word is a noun at all. Therefore, by the way, the possessive case in Russian is not a case, since the words “Vasin” or “mother” are not nouns, but adjectives. But what part of speech is “Ol” then? I came across the opinion somewhere that this is an interjection, and, perhaps, I agree with this. Indeed, “Ol” differs from “hey” only in that it is formed from the name “Olya”, but in essence it is just an exclamation aimed at attracting attention.
Transformative the inclusive case is used in phrases like “went to be an astronaut” or “ran for president.” At school we were told that all cases except the nominative are indirect, but this is a simplification; That's not exactly the point of indirection. A word is placed in one of the indirect cases when it is not the subject. In English there is only one indirect case, which is why it is sometimes called “indirect”. Its forms differ from direct ones only in a few words (I/me, we/us, they/them, etc.).
If, when analyzing the phrase “he became an astronaut,” we assume that “astronauts” is a plural form, then we need to put this word in the accusative case, and it turns out that “he became (who? what?) astronauts” . But they don’t say that, they say “he became an astronaut.” However, this is not the nominative case for three reasons: 1) “cosmonauts” is preceded by a preposition that the nominative case does not have; 2) the word “cosmonauts” is not a subject, so this case must be indirect; 3) the word “cosmonauts” in this context does not answer questions in the nominative case (who? what?) - you can’t say “who did he go to?”, only “who did he go to?” Consequently, we have the permutative case, which answers the questions of the accusative, but whose form coincides with the form of the nominative in the plural.
Counting case occurs when using some nouns with numerals. For example, we say “for (whom? what?) an hour,” but “three (whom? what?) hours,” that is, we use not the genitive, but a special, counting case. As another example, the noun “step” is called - supposedly, “two steps”. But I think I would say “two steps,” so it’s not clear how correct this example is. An independent group of examples consists of nouns formed from adjectives. In the counting case, they answer the questions of the adjectives from which they come, and in the plural. For example, “there is no (who? what?) workshop,” but “two (what?) workshops.” Let us note that the use of the plural here is not justified by the fact that there are two workshops, because when we have two chairs we say “two chairs” and not “two chairs”; We use the plural only starting with five.
Total. Of all these tricky cases, only local and inflective seem to me to be full-fledged. Waiting also makes some sense, since I don’t like waiting for “weather” by the sea. Quantitative-severative and subtractive are too slippery and can often be replaced by the genitive, so they can be considered simply options, preferable in certain cases. I’m not ready to consider the vocative as a case at all, because, as I already said, it doesn’t seem to me that “uncle” is a noun. Well, as for the counting guy, the devil only knows. The effect with nouns formed from adjectives can be considered simply a glitch of the language, and the example with an hour seems to be only one.
), Baltic languages (for example: Latvian and Lithuanian). Of the Romance vocative forms, the vocative form is preserved only in the Romanian language. It is also present in some non-Indo-European languages such as Arabic, Georgian, Korean and Chuvash. The Kvankhidatlin dialect of the Andean language is also preserved http://www.philology.ru/linguistics4/alekseev-99b.htm
Encyclopedic YouTube
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✪ Polish from A TO Ż - Vocative case (lesson 14)
✪ GREEK LANGUAGE. VOCATIVE CASE
✪ Vocative case. Address in Polish
✪ Vocative case
✪ GREEK LANGUAGE. NOMINATIVE
Subtitles
In the Indo-European proto-language
The vocative case in the Indo-European proto-language had only singular words (although in Sanskrit the vocative case also exists for the plural) masculine and feminine. The neuter gender, as a descendant of an inanimate gender, could not have a vocative case. From the very beginning of Indo-European studies, it was noted that the Proto-Indo-European forms of the vocative case in most cases have a zero ending and represent a pure stem. At the basics *O And *A A special alternation of the last vowel of the stem is also noticeable: ( Greekνύμφη - νύμφα!; Λύχο-ς - λύχε!). At the same time, characteristic of the foundations on *O vocative ending -e, has become the most characteristic and widespread: it is the only one preserved from the forms of the vocative case in Latin (lupus - lupe!), and it is also the most common, well-known and partially preserved in linguistic memory form in the Russian language (“volche!”). Declension into a consonant did not have a special vocative form. But it is assumed that the Indo-European vocative case was also distinguished by special accentuation (the emphasis was transferred to the first syllable: “oh, mother!” = Skt. mâtar, Greek μήτερ) .
According to the latest research, the vocative case in the Indo-European language is reconstructed as follows.
Thematic nouns (based on -*o-)
Using the word “wolf” as an example:
Based on -*a-
Using the example of the words “horse” (for Sanskrit), “hand” (for Old Church Slavonic and Lithuanian):
Based on -*u-
Using the example of the word “son” (for the Greek πῆχυς “forearm”):
Based on -*i-
Using the example of the words “sheep” (for Sanskrit, Ancient Greek and Lithuanian) and “guest” (for Old Church Slavonic and Gothic):
Proto-Slavic, Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian languages
In the Proto-Slavic language, nouns of the first four declensions had the vocative case; declination by i.-e. stop (“mother”, “lamb”) and i.-e. brief u(“kamas”, “remes”) did not have a vocative form. In declinations to i.-e. long -*u- and on i.-e. -*i- the vocative form retained the form of the Indo-European stem (“son!”, “guests!”), in declension in -*O- the ancient ending was preserved -e(“husband!”, “older!”). In general, in Proto-Slavic, and after it Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic, the vocative case was formed as follows:
- Ancient base on *-ā- :
- Ancient base on *-O-:
- Ancient base on *-u-:
- Ancient base on *-i-:
During the process of inflection, there was an alternation of consonants according to the first palatalization: To - h(“man” - “human”), G - and(“god” - “god”, “drug” - “friend”), x - w(“vlah” - “vlashe”).
Modern Russian language
The vocative case begins to die out quite early: already in the Ostromir Gospel (11th century) its confusion with the nominative is recorded. As birch bark documents show, in the XIV-XV centuries. it was preserved exclusively as a form of respectful address to persons of higher social rank: “Mister!”, “Madam!”, “Prince!”, “Brother!”, “Father!” By the middle of the 16th century. he finally disappeared from living speech, remaining only in forms of address to clergy (“father!”, “master!”). Until 1918, the vocative case was formally listed in grammars as the seventh case of the Russian language. In our time, the loss of the concept of the vocative case leads to the fact that in living speech archaic forms of the vocative case are often used as a nominative: “my father told me yesterday”; “Vladyka Dositheus delivered a sermon.” This causes indignation among adherents of the purity of language, calling for the abandonment of vocative forms altogether.
Supporters of the “classical” version of the Belarusian language (Tarashkevitsy), on the contrary, usually emphasize the vocative case as a distinctive feature of the Belarusian language from Russian.
Examples: “brother” - “brace”, “son” - “son”, “Ivan” - “Ivane”.
Polish language
In Polish, the vocative case (commonly called the "vocal form") wołacz) is preserved for all masculine and feminine singular nouns. However, in real modern language usage, especially in oral speech, it dies out and is often used only in frozen phraseological units. At the same time, in official business correspondence it is preserved as a sign of respect for a partner, which is a direct analogy with the limited use of the vocative in the Russian language of the 14th-15th centuries.
- The first declension (masculine, in the nominative case ends in a consonant), according to the hard version ends in - "e, with softening and/or alternation of the final consonant of the stem: chłop - chłopie!, people - people!, author - authorze!(exceptions: dom - domu!, syn - synu!, dziad - dziadu!, that is, mainly words of the former declension with i.-e. basis for a long time u). A similar ending is observed in words with a stem in -ec, For example chłopiec - chłopcze!. If the final stem sound is soft, backlingual ( -k, -g, -ch) or hardened ( -rz, -cz etc.) - ending -u: koń - koniu!, robotnik - robotniku!, patałach - patałachu!, piekarz - Piekarzu!(exception: Bóg - Boże!).
- The second declension consists of neuter nouns and therefore does not have a special vocative form. Third declension (masculine gender) -a, -o, feminine on -a, -i) usually -o: żona - żono!, poeta - poeto!; endearing forms - -u, For example, babcia - babciu!, Kasia - Kasiu!; forms with endings -i do not have a special form, for example, pani!, gospodyni!.
- The fourth declension (feminine, in the nominative case ends in a consonant) ends in -i: crew - krwi!.
Bulgarian language
| Genus | Ending | Nominative | Vocative case |
|---|---|---|---|
| M. r. | -To, -X, -w, -and, -h, -ts, -in | yunak, male, bulgarian | -o: yunako, mzho, bulgarino |
| -n, -l, -T, -R | kon, teacher, z, king | -Yu: horse, teacher, son-in-law, king | |
| other consonants | people, brother, Vasil, Dimitar, father | -e: people, brother, Vasile, Dimitra, father | |
| -Ouch, -A, -I, -O, -And: | -no ending Blagoy, Dobri, bascha, sadiya, chicho, uncle | ||
| J. b. | -A, -I | woman, mother, soul, earth | -o: babo, mamo, duso, zemyo |
| -ka(personal names) | Bonka, Verka, Stefka | -e: Bonke, Werke, Stefke | |
| -tsa | star, Elitsa | -e: star, Elitsa | |
| consonant | flight, joy, yesen | -no ending flight, joy, yesen | |
| Wed. R. | -o, -e | heap, baby | -no ending heap, baby |
Other Slavic languages
As in modern Russian, the vocative case is not used in the Slovenian and Slovak languages, with the exception of a number of stable and partially outdated phraseological units.
Latvian
In the Latvian language, the vocative case is important to remember for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th declensions:
For example:
For V, VI classes. The vocative case is formed only when the word has a diminutive suffix; when it is formed, the ending is discarded. For example: Ilze - Ilz It e - Ilz It! , zivs - zivt iņ a - zivt iņ!
Latin language
In Latin, the vocative case (casus vocativus) of nouns coincides with the nominative in all cases except one: if a noun of the second declension singular in the I. p. ends in -us, then in the vocative case it will end in -e: I. p. “barbarus” (barbarian) - Sound. n. "barbare". Moreover, if the stem of a noun ends in -i(that is, the noun ends in -ius), then in the vocative case it has a zero ending: I. p. “Demetrius”, Sound. n. "Demetri".
Vocative case of the pronoun meus (my) - mi: mi fili(referred to as “my son”)!
Georgian language
Using the word as an example კაცი (Russian person) for both declensions of nouns:
Notes
- Reformatsky A. A. Introduction to Linguistics / edited by V. A. Vinogradova. - M.: Aspect Press, 1998. - P. 488. - ISBN 5-7567-0202-4.
- //
- Beekes R.S.P. Comparative Indo-European linguistics: an introduction. - Amsterdam - Philadelphia: John Benjamin’s Publishing Company, 2011. - P. 212.
- Semerenyi O. Introduction to comparative linguistics. - M.: URSS, 2002. - P. 188.
- Beekes R.S.P. Comparative Indo-European linguistics: an introduction. - Amsterdam - Philadelphia: John Benjamin’s Publishing Company, 2011. - P. 203.
- Larisa Marsheva, professor, doctor of philological sciences. Know how to call.
- Bugaeva I. V. Functional, grammatical and semantic features of the addressee’s nomination in the religious sphere.
- Polonsky A.V. Egotive, vocative, nominative: subject and case paradigm. - Russian language abroad. - Moscow. - No. 3. - P. 27-35.
- Suprun, V. I. Anthroponyms in vocative use. - News of the Ural State University. - Ekaterinburg. - No. 20. - P. 92-96.
- Karatkevich U. Chorny zamak Alshanski (unavailable link since 03/25/2017).
- Lietvārdu locīšana.
Links
- // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
| Theory | |
|---|---|
| List of cases | |
Doctor of Philological Sciences.
All lectures in the series can be viewed .
When we turn to Church Slavonic material, it often rightly seems to us that the difficulties that may arise for those turning to the ancient text are related to the understanding of grammatical phenomena.
Naturally, the grammatical system of the ancient language developed quite actively, and in the modern language the grammar has been simplified in many ways compared to the ancient period. Nevertheless, remnants and fragments of the ancient grammatical system of the same Church Slavonic language may well be found by us in the material of the modern language.
This applies to such interesting grammatical phenomena associated with the nominal system of Church Slavonic and Russian languages, for example, with the case system or number system. Historically, in addition to the six cases known to us, there was also a vocative case, or vocative form, that is, a case that had meaning and performed the function of addressing persons or objects. In fact, as soon as we compare this material with modern language, we see that it also has a certain vocative form, when we take words of the first declension, cut off the endings from them and get a form like: “mom”, “dad”, "Mash", "Sash". This is the form that we use for address, but it does not have a feature that we would perceive as case, that is, a special ending. Here the ending is simply cut off, and this is not a fact of the modern literary language, but a fact of the spoken language. Nevertheless, functionally this is also an address, however, in this way we address only a person, but historically it was possible to address both persons and objects. But here we can also see that modern language presents archaic forms of the vocative case, which are sometimes even used, but not as addresses, but as interjections. These are traditional examples like “Lord”, “God”, “Father”. As you remember, in Pushkin’s famous fairy tale, a fish swims up and asks: “What do you want, elder?” Not “old man”, but “older”, not “father”, but “father”, not “God”, but “God” - there is a special ending “e”, and in the form “Lord” - “Lord” ending. We see that historically this vocative form, or vocative case, had a specific ending, two of which are quite clearly represented in modern language: “God” and “Lord.” Apparently, historically these were different declensions, so they have different endings.
If we take forms of stable expressions, for example, about a person who must first pay attention to himself, solve his own problem, and then deal with the problems of others, we say “to the doctor, heal yourself.” This is an expression from the Gospel that Christ uses as an expression that even then had a proverbial character. “Doctor” and “doctor” - we see that there is one more ending - “y”. If both the modern words “doctor” and “God” and the historical ones are one declension, but they have different endings, apparently this means that within each declension there were some peculiarities that forced the use of different endings. This was due to the fact that words like “God” have hard final consonant stems, while “doctor” has a soft stem, but this is a special, mixed variety in Church Slavonic. In any case, we see that the difference in endings shows that there could also be special cases and varieties within one declension.
If we take the well-known prayer “Virgin Mother of God, rejoice”, then in the words “Virgin Mother of God”, “Virgin”, “Marie” we see how the vocative case is presented in forms that in modern language belong to the 1st declension ( on “a” feminine, masculine), and in Church Slavonic grammar this is the II declension. We can observe these forms, and such an attentive attitude can point us to the ancient picture in a broader way.
The form of the dual number - the use of some special form of number in relation to two persons or objects - is also quite preserved in the Russian language. For example, in the form “personally”, which literally means “in two eyes”, there is some special ending “yu”, which also marks some fragment of the ancient system. Or cases like: “two eyes”, “two slaves”, etc., where we think that this is the genitive case of the singular, but historically this is the form of the dual number, which was simply rethought in the language as a construction with the genitive case of a singular noun.
When we turn to an ancient text, we observe that some phenomena and elements have been fully preserved in modern language, but at the same time, perhaps, have undergone some kind of rethinking. As we can see, the “two slaves” form, as it was historically, has not visually changed now.
From school we clearly know that there are 6 cases in the Russian language. But it turns out that this is not entirely true; there are many more cases in grammar. Many of them have survived in a residual state, having come into the Russian language from Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian. One of these phenomena is the vocative case in Russian.
Vocative case: acquaintance
In order to indicate an appeal to a person, thing or object, the vocative case is used in Russian. The examples are quite varied:
- Mash, come look at the cat!
- Vit, bring some firewood!
- Van, call dad quickly!
- Lord, help me in this difficult situation!
- Oh God, give me strength!
The examples showed that the object in the vocative case is expressed by a noun and represents its short form.
From the history of the case
In the Indo-European language - the ancestor of our modern one - this case was equal to other cases. However, when Indo-European split into many language families, Sv. n. in most cases began to coincide with the nominative and ceased to be an independent case. However, in grammars of 1918 this case was still mentioned.
Now it is He who is used for. etc., but the vocative case has been partially preserved in the Russian language. Examples are:
- Marin, please bring a book from the library.
Let's compare: the use of Him. n. instead of Sv. p. will in no way affect the meaning of the sentence: Marina, please bring a book from the library.
- Look around, old man, everything is destroyed and set on fire.
Here the vocative form “older” is used to give the statement a sublime sound, this is the so-called high syllable. If you replace the form with Im. etc., then the meaning will not change, but the phrase will no longer sound the same.
- Lord, help me walk this path.
This word form is used in religious texts and prayers, is heard by native speakers, and is not perceived as something unusual.
Features of the case form
Let us highlight several key features inherent in this case form:
- Coincides in form with Him. P.
- It is used for the sole purpose of conversion.
- Its functions resemble an interjection.
- It is perceived by a native speaker not as a noun, but as an exclamation.
The vocative case could be formed in various ways, the main ones are presented in the table.
When forming the new nominative case, the endings in the following words can be shortened:
- Names, including the diminutive version (Van, Vanyush).
- Terms related to family (mothers, aunts, fathers, grandfathers).
- Some words form a vocative form even in the plural (guys, girls).
The ways of forming vocative forms cannot be called diverse, but they are often used in oral speech.
Forms of the vocative case
In the table we present the main forms characteristic of words in the vocative case.
In addition to truncating the endings of proper names, it is also possible to use short forms of the names of relatives. The vocative case is also formed in Russian. Examples are given below:
- Mom, where is the tablecloth?
- Dad, help me solve this problem!
- Aunt, when will you arrive?
The form of the vocative case is also preserved in the words “grandfather”, “daughter”:
- Daughter, come visit soon!
- Grandfather, come here quickly, help!
Such sentences have a pronounced conversational tone.
Vocative case in Russian: example and interesting facts
- The second name of Sound. p - vocative.
- There is the old vocative case (used as an equivalent case in the ancient form of the language) and the new vocative case (formed in oral speech by native speakers by truncating the endings of nouns).
- Initially it was in many languages: Sanskrit, Latin and ancient Greek, but it did not pass into modern languages.
- It is preserved in some languages: Romanian, Greek, Ukrainian, Serbian, Polish and others.
- The vocative form disappeared from the Russian language quite early, in the 14th-15th centuries, surviving only as a respectful address to boyars and princes.
Only singular masculine and feminine nouns could form the vocative case in Russian. Examples: Friend! God! Prince!
Often vocative forms are used in stable phraseological units: Lord God Jesus Christ (all four words in the voc.), our master.
In the literature of the 19th-20th centuries, the vocative case was also used for archaization. The examples are now quite diverse:
- In Pushkin’s text “What do you want, elder,” the form is used to create the effect of archaization.
- “Turn around, son.” This form helps to recreate the peculiarities of the speech of Ukrainian Cossacks.
Vocative case in Russian: rule
Words in the vocative case in a sentence play the role of address, so they are separated in writing by commas.
Here's an example:
- Marus, come to the performance today.
- Mom, help me wash the dishes!
- Vanyush, where is the new book?
From the above examples it is clear that this rule applies to any sentence - narrative, incentive or interrogative.
The vocative case in Russian is often used to give the text an ironic flavor. Example: Man! When will you come to your senses and work properly!
The vocative case in the Russian language, examples of its use were given above, is an amazing grammatical phenomenon, indicating that our language is changing over time. If many centuries ago this form was commonly used in oral speech, now it is often used only in religious texts or to give a sentence a sublime coloring.
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