linguistic typology Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the co ...

, the case hierarchy denotes an order of grammatical cases. If a language has a particular case, it also has all cases lower than this particular case. To put it another way, if a language lacks a particular case, it is also unlikely to develop cases higher than this particular case. This theory was developed by the Australian linguist Barry Blake. His theory was inspired by the approach of Italian linguist Guglielmo Cinque. The hierarchy is as follows:Blake, B. J. (2001). ''Case'' (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. : NOM < ACC / ERG < GEN < DAT < LOC < ABL /

INS INS or Ins or ''variant'', may refer to: Places * Ins, Switzerland, a municipality * Creech Air Force Base (IATA airport code INS) * Indonesia, ITF and UNDP code INS Biology *''Ins'', a New World genus of bee flies * INS, the gene for the insulin ...

< ''others'' This is only a general tendency, however. Many forms of

Central German Central German or Middle German (german: mitteldeutsche Dialekte, mitteldeutsche Mundarten, Mitteldeutsch) is a group of High German dialects spoken from the Rhineland in the west to the former eastern territories of Germany. Central German di ...

such as

Colognian Colognian or Kölsch (; natively ''Kölsch Platt'') is a small set of very closely related dialects, or variants, of the Ripuarian group of dialects of the Central German group. These dialects are spoken in the area covered by the Archdiocese ...

or Luxembourgish have a dative case but lack a genitive. In Irish nouns, the nominative and accusative have fallen together, while the dative case has remained separate in some paradigms; Irish also has a genitive and vocative case. In

Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...

, the accusative, genitive, and dative have merged to an oblique case, but the language still retains vocative, locative, and ablative cases.

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

had an instrumental case, but not a locative or prepositional. Blake argues that it is "doubtful that the hierarchy can be extended much further", but does suggest that the most common cases not listed in the hierarchy are the comitative,

purposive The purposive approach (sometimes referred to as purposivism, purposive construction, purposive interpretation, or the modern principle in construction) is an approach to statutory interpretation, statutory and constitutional interpretation under ...

, allative,

perlative In grammar, the perlative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which expresses that something moved "through", "across", or "along" the referent of the noun that is marked. The case is found in a number of Australian Aboriginal languages such a ...

and comparative.

References

See also