The benefactive case (
abbreviated
An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening, contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened form of a word, usually ended with a trailing per ...
, or sometimes when it is a
core argument) is a
grammatical case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...
used where
English would use "for", "for the benefit of", or "intended for", e.g. "She opened the door ''for Tom''" or "This book is ''for Bob''". The benefactive case expresses that the referent of the noun it marks receives the benefit of the situation expressed by the clause.
This meaning is often incorporated in a
dative case
In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this examp ...
. In
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
this type of dative is called the ''dativus commodi''.
An example of a language with a benefactive case is
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
, which has a benefactive case ending in ''-entzat''.
Quechua is another example, and the benefactive case ending in Quechua is ''-paq''. Tangkhul-Naga (from the
Tibeto-Burman group of languages) has the benefactive case marker '.
In
Aymara, the benefactive case is marked with -''taki'', expressing that the referent of the inflected noun benefits from the situation expressed by the verb, or, when there is no verb, that the noun to which it attaches is a recipient, as in the word below:
Benefactive meaning may also be marked on the verb, in a common type of
applicative voice
The applicative voice (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical voice that promotes an ''oblique'' argument of a verb to the ''core'' object argument. It is generally considered a valency-increasing morpheme. The applicative is often found in aggl ...
.
Autobenefactive
An autobenefactive case or voice marks a case where the agents and the benefactor are one and the same. In
Rhinelandic colloquial German, one finds expressions like:
: '
(I smoke a cigarette for myself), where ' (for myself) is optional.
In the
Colognian language, there is a compulsory autobenefactive for example with the verb ' (to pray) when it is used
intransitive
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb, aside from an auxiliary verb, whose context does not entail a transitive object. That lack of an object distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additi ...
ly:
: '
(He is praying).
Similarly, in French one can say, in informal but fully correct language:
: '
(Literally: ''I (to) myself smoke a cigarette. I (to) myself do a pause.)
Formally, those forms coincide with
reflexives in these languages.
A similar construction is also found in colloquial English with a pronoun that is reflexive in function but not form:
: '
See also
*
Ditransitive verb
References
Grammatical cases
Transitivity and valency
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