Is it correct to say that English has the dative case?

Question

Is it correct to say that, nowadays, English has the dative case, or was it only present in Old English?

Kosmonaut · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-24T15:41:56.823

21

It actually depends on what kind of theoretical framework you are operating under.

If your question is whether English has some sort of overt affix that attaches to words that marks dative case unambiguously, then the answer is no. (If ambiguity between accusative and dative case is fine, then many of the pronouns, as well as whom, could be considered to be marking dative).

However, case marking does not have to necessarily be done with an affix, it can be done with a preposition. In English, the preposition to is used to mark dative case. For example:

To me, this is an easy problem.

I gave ten dollars to them.

She's like a sister to him.

You could say that this "replaced" case marking, but, in fact, this is case marking! The word to has essentially no meaning except to mark the specific function in the sentence of the noun it modifies.

To compare, in German (a language with a clear dative case), the equivalent sentences would all have a dative pronoun in place of the entire "to X" phrase.

(Note: Sometimes for is used as well, although I think one could argue that for might also contribute some additional meaning — to is the "purest" dative marker. Also, keep in mind that not all instances of the to preposition are simply dative case markers. For example, as part of the infinitive, or as a locative preposition: "I went to the park".)

edited Feb 24 '11 at 15:41

answered Feb 24 '11 at 15:36

Kosmonaut

50,402

6

A good exposition (+1). But I wanted to add that in some constructions the dative sense is expressed without a preposition either. Verbs like "give" and "show" which normally require both direct and indirect objects can have the indirect object without a marker, as long as it comes first: "He gave me the book" = "He gave the book to me". Also, some verbs which do not require an indirect object can take an unmarked object as beneficiary: "He cooked me a meal" = "He cooked a meal for me". – Colin Fine Feb 24 '11 at 17:35
@Colin Fine: I was focusing on instances of overt case marking, but I should have mentioned that too. Thanks for writing it up clearly so I don't have to bother! :) – Kosmonaut Feb 24 '11 at 18:20
One could at the most argue that to insertion is a "mechanism" to achieve dative case, not that "this is case marking" -- in that the preposition is not a dedicated device for the purpose: "...not all instances of the to preposition are simply dative case markers." BTW you have (inadvertently?) stated "to is the "purest" dative marker" (emph. mine). – Kris Nov 01 '12 at 05:10
Methinks "methinks" has a hidden dative in it, because I think "I think" is not what "methinks" means..Rather, it seems to me, it means "it seems to me. – Airymouse Feb 09 '17 at 14:09

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 24 '11 at 18:09

There are clearly a number of views on this matter. Firstly, it's worth mentioning that some frameworks have the notion that every noun phrase must be assigned some case or other. But Case can then be an underlying phenomenon rather than an overt one.

If you accept such principles, then the question effectively becomes one of deciding if in English "I gave him the book", him is in the same case as in German "Ich gab ihm das Buch" (assuming again that you accept the notion that German ihm is "dative case"), and possibly whether English "for him" and/or German "für ihn", "an ihn" etc can also be examples of dative case.

There's really no consensus on this, but some things to consider:

in languages with overt case marking, coordinated nouns pretty much always share the same case: so to my knowledge, a German would always say "mit David und ihm" ("with David and him", with "ihm" being in the case governed by the preposition "mit"), and would never say the equivalent of e.g. "with David and I", as does readily occur in English; so we have grounds not to try and shoehorn English into a "canonical" case system;
English "dative" objects can become subject pronouns in the passive, as though they were "direct" objects; if English behaved like German with its overt case marking, then that overt case would be maintained in the passive (contrast English "He was given the book" with German "Ihm/*Er wurde das Buch gegeben", where only "Ihm", dative, and not "Er", nominative, is possible)
in various languages, there is some alternation between an overt dative and a prepositional phrase, similar to English "I made him a cake"~"I made a cake for him"; "I sent him a package"~"I sent a package to him" e.g. German dative can often be replaced with "an/für..."; in as much as "lui", "le" are overtly dative, French often allows "lui/pour lui" to alternative, Spanish "le/para él" etc,
On the other hand, "dative" objects in English do have some special properties meaning they don't behave like "normal" direct objects: e.g. they don't tend to relativise as readily ("I saw the guy you mentioned" vs "??I saw the guy you gave a headache")

So on the one hand, English "him" etc can have some properties of what we might see as "canonically dative", but on the other hand, it has some properties that aren't, and it's clear that English isn't a language with canonical overt case marking.

Case really requires inflection. It would be proper to say that English has constructs that fill the function of the dative case in other languages, but we really only have the declension of a very small list of pronouns and the plural forms of a relatively short list of "homely" nouns remaining of what was once a highly-inflected language. — bye, Feb 24 '11 at 18:38
@Stan -- I'm relatively sympathetic to the point of view of requiring inflection, but it is a particular viewpoint, and the notion of underlying universal Case is also a reasonably mainstream view. N.B. Some languages appear to have systematic case systems but mark them with something other than inflection, e.g. with a suffix much more like English 's (but more systematically). — Neil Coffey, Feb 24 '11 at 20:24
@NeilCoffey "Ich gab ihm das Buch" (assuming again that you accept the notion that German ihm is "dative case"), and possibly whether English "for him" and/or German "für ihn", "an ihn" etc can also be examples of dative case. -- "Ich gab ihm das Buch"/"Ich gab für ihn das Buch"/*"Ich gab an ihm das Buch"/"Ich gab ihm das Buch" all have different meanings. Für takes only the accusative and I cannot see how the phrase could be a dative. (*"Ich gab an ihm das Buch" doesn’t make sense,) — Greybeard, Apr 27 '22 at 10:07
@Greybeard The point is that across the language as a whole, this alternation occurs, not that in every specific case, all alternations will be possible. — Neil Coffey, Apr 29 '22 at 14:49

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 24 '11 at 09:00

It's hardly right to say that English still has a separate dative case. The case exist in the theoretical sense (in “he gave me flowers”, the grammatical case of me is the dative case), but it is not expressed by specific pronouns. Indeed, uses prepositions such as to or for.

The only remnants of the dative case in modern English are pronouns such as “whom”, “him”, “her”, etc., which have absorbed both the accusative and dative case.

The Wikipedia entry on the topic has decent, if basic, information on the topic.

+1 Also for being the only answer with a relevant citation. – Kris Nov 01 '12 at 05:13 — Kris, Nov 01 '12 at 05:13

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 24 '11 at 08:59

2

English cases are most obvious in pronouns, which have subjective, objective, possessive and reflexive cases. The objective case corresponds to what other languages often use as the accusative and dative cases as with me in She hugged me and He gave me the book.

So the dative case is not distinct in English, but saying that English does or does not have a dative case is (for me) a matter of personal preference. Better not to say either.

answered Feb 24 '11 at 08:59

Henry

20,183

1

In traditional Sanskrit grammar (the only grammar I'm somewhat familiar with), a distinction is made between vibhakti, the actual "case" a noun takes, and "kāraka", the role of the word, roughly the semantic equivalent of case. Looking around for translations, the latter in English linguistics seems to be called thematic relation. So it's right to say the "Recipient" thematic role exists in English (as it probably must in any language), but English doesn't usually mark thematic roles with case, so the dative case is not separate as such. – ShreevatsaR Feb 24 '11 at 09:32
@ ShreevatsaR: Interesting; so doesn't Sanskrit grammar use the level between morphology and semantics, synataxis, in which a (pro)noun can be called indirect object and a complement to the verb? – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 24 '11 at 15:07
Henry: in principle, it's not a matter of personal preference, but one of scientific fact. If we don't yet have the knowledge to establish that scientific fact with 100% certainty, this is a different matter, but absence of that certainty doesn't mean we should just make something up rather than analysing the available evidence to the best of our ability... – Neil Coffey Feb 24 '11 at 15:07
@Neil: I shouldn't call it a matter of making things up; the thing is rather that we have certain traditional models and definitions, and that the choice between definitions is not too different from personal preference, unless one model should be in all respects inferior, which is not the case here. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 24 '11 at 15:11
@Neil Coffey: Language is not really a scientific discipline and usually has limited certainty of rules and regulations, very much open to change and debate. – Orbling Feb 24 '11 at 19:06
1

@Orbling -- Erm since when can't language be a scientific discipline. Google "linguistics"... :-) I repeat: whether or not German "ihm" is the same phenomenon of English "(to) him" is not in principle a matter of opinion, it is a matter of scientific fact, just as is the question of whether there exists life on other planets: we may not have enough knowledge to answer that question with certainty, but there is in principle an answer one way or the other. – Neil Coffey Feb 24 '11 at 20:26
@Neil Coffey: Even in physics, one of the basic principles is that it is all a model, ever changing as we refine our knowledge and views. ;-) On your ihm point, yes. – Orbling Feb 24 '11 at 20:45
Yes, the model is ever changing, but the idea is to move towards a model that best describes the universe, not any old arbitrary model! Similarly in syntax, there are competing models, but if we could demonstrate that one model more adequately accounted (only) for the syntactic phenomena that we observe, we ought to prefer that model. – Neil Coffey Feb 24 '11 at 21:06
@Cerberus: Honestly my hold on grammar isn't very strong (thus "somewhat familiar"), and on further thought what I described as semantics may even be closer to syntax… But I didn't understand you. I cannot find synataxis on the web, and if I understand what "indirect object" means, the noun in the dative case is just considered (AFAIK) the (equivalent of) Recipient, not an indirect object of the verb. Some special verbs (dvikarmaka) are counted as taking two objects (as "I bought him the book" does in English syntactically?), but that's probably not relevant. Anyway, beyond my depth. :-) – ShreevatsaR Feb 25 '11 at 12:52
@ShreevatsaR: Yikes, my bad. Synataxis was a stupid typo for syntaxis, which should have been syntax (especially outside the classics). I should have typed simply syntax - now I have made you Google for nothing, my apologies. ... – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 26 '11 at 03:29
@ShreevatsaR: ... Since English has all but dropped the use of visible cases, the case label is not of much use any more. But strictly speaking the dative case is/was used with various syntactic functions, such as the prepositional object of to ("to him"), and indirect objects ("I bought him a book"). Basically an i.o. is used with verbs that affect two things: one directly (often a patient or theme), and another one indirectly. An i.o. can often be replaced with "for x" or "to x": "I bought a book for him", "I gave a book to him". ... – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 26 '11 at 03:31
@ShreevatsaR: ... The i.o. can be used to indicate various thematic relations, like recipient, beneficiary ("I sang him a song"), and constituents with debatable thematic relations ("I asked him a question": is him direction, recipient, experiencer, or something else?). Thematic relations are usually rather flexible and inexact. ... – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 26 '11 at 03:32
@ShreevatsaR: ... It seems Sanskrit grammar doesn't need the middle level of syntactic functions! I suppose all these levels are merely a matter of definition. Perhaps dvikarmaka are verbs that have two constituents in the accusative case, like English verbs that have an object complement: "I made him my enemy", "I found her a bore", etc. My apologies for this too-long reply. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 26 '11 at 03:33
@NeilCofey: Then we'd need several conflicting models for the various historical phases of our language, and even more of those to describe several IE languages in comparison. In some situations this may be desirable: but in many cases I feel that an overarching model has great advantages. It is often fruitful to analyse a modern variant of a language not only in isolation, but also by comparison with older phases and cognate languages. Traditional models are better suited for this. In addition, they are easier to understand for scholars of different but linked disciplines. – Cerberus - Reinstate Monica Feb 26 '11 at 03:51
Having looked at a number of Indo-European languages, I find myself in accord with ShreevatsaR in that English has only limited inflexion but in usage one can find a wide range of cases when determined by the preposition, although the spelling is common. To/for =dative, at/by>locative, from>ablative, by>Instrumental. I have seen grammars that claim only Nominative,objective and genitive, and then go on to describe an indirect object as if the latter has no case at all. I dont see why dative is acknowledged and the others ignored. There being no ruling authority, it's a free for all. – Nov 01 '12 at 03:10

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 09 '17 at 11:12

English does not have a dative case, but it can express what would have been expressed using a dative case, nonetheless.

When you write "in Athens", this is essentially a dative case, otherwise you cannot justify the use of the preposition "in" and you would be forced to interpret it using one of its other meanings (i.e. temporal range, locality range, inward direction, interior of an enclosed space, etc.) or use "to", so that it would match a verb of direction or motion.

The adverbials invariably express an accusative cause (not "case") in the accusative case, in this example, a dative cause. When you say "in doing so" it is essentially expressing a dative case. When you say "he has been at sea for years", (i.e. sailing), you are essentially expressing a dative case, using an accusative as a substitute for the dative (which is why dropping the definite article "the" becomes necessary).

score -2 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 06 '11 at 22:20

-2

We have been blessed with the verb-form "gifted" so I guess there must be a dative around here somewhere.

answered Apr 06 '11 at 22:20

Pete Wilson

1,892

Is it correct to say that English has the dative case?

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