The respective case (so named by Anthony Appleyard Anthony Appleyard, "Quenya Grammar Reexamined", http://tolklang.quettar.org/articles/Appleyard.Quenya, March 7, 1995.) is a noun case created by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

in his

constructed language A constructed language (shortened to conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, orthography, and vocabulary, instead of having developed natural language, naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devise ...

Quenya Quenya ()Tolkien wrote in his "Outline of Phonology" (in '' Parma Eldalamberon'' 19, p. 74) dedicated to the phonology of Quenya: is "a sound as in English ''new''". In Quenya is a combination of consonants, ibidem., p. 81. is a constructed l ...

(one of two of the elven languages which feature in ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...

'' and ''

The Silmarillion ''The Silmarillion'' () is a book consisting of a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited, partly written, and published posthumously by his son Christopher in 1977, assisted by G ...

''); Tolkien himself never named the case (at least, not in any of his published writings). Since the exact function of this noun case is unclear, a more neutral term for it is the "s-case", as it is formed by appending an ''-s'' suffix to the noun it modifies. It is unclear whether this case is used with

preposition Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...

s, transitive or intransitive verbs, or whether it has a more general use. Based on a few examples, Helge Fauskanger has inferred the possibility that it is used as a kind of locative (e.g.: ''i coa i taures / i coa i tauressë'' the house in the forest). Helge Fauskanger,
''Quenya: L’antica lingua''
“I sostantivi”, Gianluca Comastri, Italian trans., ''Ardalambion''. Accessed 16 April 2016. Another possible use is to translate expressions with the preposition “about.” For example, in translating “He told me ''about'' the invasion,” the Quenya word for “invasion” might appear in the respective/s-case. The seeming absence of any other case being used to translate this preposition lends support to this conjecture. Ales Bican has written an article exploring these and other possible functions for Tolkien's respective/s-case.Ales Bican, "the -s case", http://www.elvish.org/elm/scase.html, November 15, 2006. An example of inflection of the word ''cirya'' (ship) including the respective is present:

References

{{Portal bar, Constructed languages, Speculative fiction Grammatical cases J. R. R. Tolkien