by David Webb

I thought I’d write some cultural notes on the accusative case. Proto-Indo-European had an accusative case, and Slavic languages in particular, as well as German, Greek and others, retain it. Most English people know of the accusative from their study of Latin. As English is no longer a case language, we think of this case in terms of the direct object of the verb, but this does not fully cover the uses of the accusative. The object forms him, her, etc, that we still have with the pronouns derive from the original datives, and not the original accusatives in Old English.

The most straightforward use is that of the direct object. I see the dog: the dog is the object of the verb and in case languages dog would go in the accusative. But take this example: the cheese weighs an ounce. How would you parse an ounce? If I say I weigh the cheese, it is clear that the cheese is the object of the verb; it is the thing being weighed. But in the cheese weighs an ounce, an ounce is not the thing being weighed. How can it be the direct object?

It is fine if, in ordinary parlance, you regard an ounce as the object of the verb, but it isn’t really. This is an instance of the “accusative of extent or duration”. Weighs is therefore intransitive in this sentence, and an ounce is an argument that gives you the extent. In Russian, this would be сыр весит унцию, syr v’es’it untsiyu, where untsiyu is in the accusative case, although the ounce isn’t the thing being weighed out.

If you say it costs a hryvnia, using the Ukrainian currency unit as it is necessary to select a feminine word in Russian to show the declined accusative, then it is стоит гривну, stoit gr’ivnu, where gr’ivnu is in the accusative case. This is once again the accusative of extent. To drive a mile is ехать милю, jekhat’ m’ilyu, where m’ilyu is the accusative of extent. Продержаться минуту, prod’erzhat’sia m’inutu, “to last a minute”, has m’inutu in the accusative of extent. This shows that both duration in time and extent in space are accusative.

Different languages have different rules for accusative use, of course, but there is a basic consistency. In Latin, multos annos, “for many years”, uses the accusative of extent/duration. The Latin use of the accusative to denote place towards, which, as in Romam, “to Rome”, makes sense, but in Russian a preposition would be required, в Рым, v Rym, although the placename is accusative. Latin of course has its own list of prepositions that take accusative, mainly per, trans and ad. The fact that some of these uses can show purpose, as ad proficiscendum, “for the purpose of departing”, can be understood as a subset of the use of the preposition ad.

Particularly interesting is use of the accusative in exclamations where there is no verb. Circe said to Ulysses, me miseram, “poor me”. I can only understand these exclamations as implying the presence of an elided but understood verb. If you say in Russian пиццу в холодильник, p’itstsu v kholod’il’nik, pizza into the fridge, the fact that p’itstsu is accusative can suggest the presence of an elided verb like “put”. Maybe me miseram really means or at least derives from “(pity) poor me!”?

Modern Irish Gaelic has no morphologically apparent accusative, although some dialects have four cases (nominative, vocative, genitive and dative). Ag gabháil an bóthar, proceeding on your way, is interesting, as ag gabháil is a verbal noun that should govern the genitive case, but an bóthar is nominative (and given the loss of the accusative case, it can be called the nominative-accusative). An bóthar, “the road, the way”, can be seen as an accusative of extent in space, and used almost adverbially. Imeacht an cnoc suas, to go up the hill, shows the same grammatical issue, where an cnoc, “the hill” is nominative, but essentially an accusative of extent in space.

Irish is rich in things like an té is lag creideamh, the person weakest in faith, literally “the one who is weak faith”. Creideamh is the accusative of respect or specification. In this sentence, it is “the one who is weak [in respect of his] faith”.

There is therefore more to the accusative than the direct object. Of course, languages like English that lack the morphological case have not abolished the accusative functions as such. They are still in the language, but not marked for by case endings.

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