A direct case ( abbreviated ) is a

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

used with all three core relations: both the

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and

patient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other heal ...

of transitive verbs and the argument of intransitive verbs, though not always at the same time. The direct case contrasts with other cases in the language, typically

oblique Oblique may refer to: * an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / ) *Oblique angle, in geometry *Oblique triangle, in geometry * Oblique lattice, in geometry * Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the b ...

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...

. The direct case is often imprecisely called the "nominative" in South Asia and "absolutive" in the Philippines, but linguists typically reserve those terms for grammatical cases that have a narrower scope. (See

nominative case 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 Eng ...

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 nominativ ...

.) A direct case is found in several

Indo-Iranian languages The Indo-Iranian languages (also Indo-Iranic languages or Aryan languages) constitute the largest and southeasternmost extant branch of the Indo-European language family (with over 400 languages), predominantly spoken in the geographical subr ...

, there it may contrast with an oblique case that marks some core relations, so the direct case does not cover all three roles in the same tense. For example, DixonR. M. W. Dixon, ''Ergativity'', p. 202 describes " proto-Pamir" as having, in the present tense, the direct case for S and A and the oblique case for O (a nominative–accusative alignment), and, in the past tense, the direct for S and O and the oblique for A (an absolutive–ergative alignment). Because of this split (see

split ergativity In linguistic typology, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergat ...

), neither "nominative" nor "absolutive" is an adequate description of the direct case, just as neither "accusative" nor "ergative" is an adequate description of the oblique case. The

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...

''nominative'' case is also an example of a direct case, which evolved as the accusative became indistinguishable in both speech and writing from the nominative as a result of phonetic change. The situation in the

Irish language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

is similar, though some pronouns retain a distinction (e.g. "you" (singular) - nominative ''tú'', accusative ''thú'') In languages of the Philippines, and in related languages with Austronesian alignment, the direct case is the case of the argument of an intransitive clause (S), and may be used for either argument of a transitive clause (agent or patient), depending on the

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

of the verb. The other transitive argument will be in either the ergative or accusative case if different cases are used for those roles. In languages where a single case is used for the other argument, as in

Tagalog Tagalog may refer to: Language * Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines ** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language ** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language * Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Taga ...

, it is called the indirect case. This is analogous to the direct–oblique distinction in proto-Pamir, but with the split conditioned by voice rather than by tense.

References

* {{Grammatical cases Grammatical cases