grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...

, the intransitive case (

abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

), also denominated passive case or patient case, is a

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In va ...

used in some languages to mark the

argument An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialect ...

of an

intransitive verb In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs a ...

, but not used with

transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''. Transiti ...

s. It is generally seen in languages that display

tripartite Tripartite means composed of or split into three parts, or refers to three parties. Specifically, it may also refer to any of the following: * 3 (number) * Tripartite language * Tripartite motto * Tripartite System in British education * Tripa ...

nominal morphologies; it contrasts with the

nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of ...

and

absolutive case In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative� ...

s employed in other languages' morphosyntax to mark the argument of intransitive clauses. As a distinct intransitive case has zero marking in all languages known to have one, and is the citation form of the noun, it is frequently called absolutive, a word used for an unmarked citation-form argument in various case systems.

See also