Oblique case

In grammar, an oblique (abbreviated ; from casus obliquus) or objective case (abbr. ) is a nominal case other than the nominative case and, sometimes, the vocative. A noun or pronoun in the oblique case can generally appear in any role except as subject, for which the nominative case is used. The term objective case is generally preferred by modern English grammarians, where it supplanted Old English's dative and accusative. When the two terms are contrasted, they differ in the ability of a word in the oblique case to function as a possessive attributive; whether English has an oblique rather than an objective case then depends on how "proper" or widespread one considers the dialects where such usage is employed. An oblique case often contrasts with an unmarked case, as in English oblique him and them versus nominative he and they. However, the term oblique is also used for languages without a nominative case, such as ergative–absolutive languages; in the Northwest Caucasian languages, for example, the oblique-case marker serves to mark the ergative, dative, and applicative case roles, contrasting with the absolutive case, which is unmarked. Declension in Hindi Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu) nouns, pronouns and postpositions decline for an oblique case which exclusively serves to mark the grammatical case roles using the case-marking postpositions. The oblique case has similarities with the vocative case in Hindustani. Some examples of the declension pattern are shown in the tables below: Bulgarian, an analytic Slavic language, also has an oblique case form for pronouns: Dative role: "Give that ball to me" дай тaзи топка на мен (day tazi topka na men) (This oblique case is a relic of the original, more complex proto-Slavic system of noun cases, and there are remnants of other cases in Bulgarian, such as the vocative case of direct address) An objective case is marked on the English personal pronouns and as such serves the role of the accusative and dative cases that other Indo-European languages employ.