This is about why there are grammatical instruments such as a case system. Maybe in most cases it really isn't much of a problem when you don't immediately recognize the part of speech a word belongs to. But at times a case system might come in handy.
Inflections that change verbs and nouns
Let's not claim that because Icelandic and German still have more or less strong verbal paradigms, grammatical gender and a case system, and because English once had it all as well, we should reintroduce these things into modern English.
But let's say there's a radio program called Grammar Matters. Is matters a noun in the plural or a verb in the "third person singular present tense, indicative mode, active voice" -- Wait a minute -- Present tense "it matters" as opposed to, say, past tense "it mattered". So, there still are a few endings like -s and -ed after all, called inflections that give a word a twist in its meaning.
And quickly: Indicative mode "it matters" as opposed to subjunctive mode "it may matter" which used to be recognizable by the ending of the verb, here: matter or its equivalent, as opposed to needing an auxiliary verb, here: may -- active voice "she is taking a photo" as opposed to passive voice "a photo is being taken".
The Shapes of Verbs and Nouns
So, the as yet fictitious radio program Grammar Matters could mean that it is about grammar things-- matters, subjects, issues to do with grammar. Here, in these constructions, it becomes clear that matters is a noun in the plural. Or Grammar Matters could mean: "Grammar is important". You cannot tell without more background information or before hearing it being pronounced by the program's host.
Another good example why a case system can be a useful thing to have, instead of just "providing the learner with a set of mistakes to make" as it was once put, can be seen in a sentence like this: "He called his neighbor a doctor."
This sentence is ambiguous because there are no case markers at the end of neighbor and doctor to tell us who is actually called what, or who is called for whom, or who is involved in what's happening. Here are a few remnants, however, that made it into modern English, or PDE, Present-Day English: who as opposed to whom, "he" as opposed to his or him. What we are dealing with here are the subjects, and the direct and indirect objects of a sentence.
The sentence "Could you give me the key, please." isn't any trickier than "Could you give the key to me, please," though the second sentence could be understood as stressing the "to me" object. The "key" is the thing given, and the "me" is the part of the sentence that is involved in the giving and that probably benefits from receiving the key.
Dative, the Case of Involvement
For learners of Latin the term dative of advantage would be used but, depending on the circumstances, however, there are many further datives, but they all basically boil down to the case of involvement, one way or another.
So, the indirect object, "me" in this case, is involved. It is not the thing being given; because that's the key, which is therefore the direct object (in the accusative), even though one cannot conclude this from its mere shape any longer, but one can from its position in the sentence.
The doctor example would be less ambiguous if the words had case markers, let's say:
- The neighbor is reading.
- This is *thes neighbores* newspaper.
- I give it to *them neighbore*.
- I can see *thone neighbor*.
What we have here in these four sample sentences with a *funky new grammar* are the cases called nominative (1), genitive (2), dative (3) and accusative (4).
We might call the nominative the who case, the agent of an action, as the neighbor who is doing something. We might call the genitive the possessive case, the whose case, whose is it. The dative case, also called the indirect object, is the to-whom case, that's the part of the sentence that is involved in the action.
The accusative case, also called the direct object, is the part of the sentence that is immediately affected. Here, it's the newspaper, it's the one that is being given, changes ownership, or is being read to pieces.
It is perfectly normal for a Germanic language to have words that in this fourth case have a shape like the one in the first case, the nominative. But don't despair. For one, this isn't the whole story yet, anyway, for another, we have the newspaper's article to help us.
Articles Specify Nouns and their Functions
Far from being what's written on any of the paper's pages, the noun's definite articles instead are: the, *thes, them, thone*. If we see something like this: "The neighbor sees me." then we know that "the neighbor" is the one doing something. But if we see: "I can see *thone neighbor*." then we know that it is "I" doing something and "thone neighbor" is the object.
Equally, a change in word order used to not change the meaning, but simply give some stress to the object. Look here: "*Thone* neighbor I see." This would be much like: "It is the neighbor whom I see." or even "...who I see." or just "... I see." We would, however, these days feel a little uneasy about "The neighbor I see", wouldn't we.
Just in case your school hadn't considered it important to raise your awareness of what a properly arranged sentence is, and what its parts are there for, and instead decided to let intuition take care of this, you now might have the added advantage of being the one who can structure his or her thoughts and ideas so well that being misunderstood becomes less likely.
Thomas Wimmer - Having studied Linguistics, French, German, Latin, Classical Greek and Old English, and finding no end to exploring and learning about ...
