Accusative

(After a large dose of Pop Rocks and caffeine, I've decided to continue with the ignoble task of imparting Ancient Greek grammar to Everything. Oh the shame, that I've taken four years of an entirely pointless and obscure language...)

• The main use of the accusative case is as the direct object of a verb.
  EX: Jane lit Bob the Troll on fire.
  As we have direct objects in English, I'm not going to attempt to explain this any further. If you still can't figure it out, however please pound the keyboard with your forehead. Repeatedly.


• Another use for the accusative is duration of time.
  EX: The smell of burnt fur hung in the air for a long, long, time.
  Surprisingly, this form of the accusative is actually found with time-defining particles and prepositions! The gods are occasionally merciful, it seems.
  
• The next use is place to which, which is, thankfully, simple.
  EX: Willard brought his monkey with him to the cricket game.
  For another example, go to hell.


• Another use is that oh so popular apposition.
  EX: Rampaging Marxists attacked my cousin Vladimir.
  I repeat, if you can't get this one, please stop reading these writeups.
  
• The next use of the accusative is entirely too odd. the abovelinked "accusative with infinitive" is a very common construction in Greek, used for everything from temporal clauses to indirect statements. The accusative in such cases is turned into the subject of the dependent clause, and all words modifying that subject, be they adverb, adjective, or predicate complement, shift into the accusative.
  EX: It is well known that the main reason people die is that they were born.
  I know, I know, cheap shot for using a clause as a predicate complement, but it gets the point across. Besides, this is a sadly accurate reflection of what most Ancient Greek sentences were like. And I'm not even going to get into dactylic hexameter....
  

in Latin, the accusative case is used to express the direct object of a verb. It is also used with some prepositions..

For Example:
English: "Mary likes frogs."
Latin: "Maria amat ranas."

English: "Mary is walking to the villa."
Latin: "Maria ad villam ambulat."

In Latin, the Accusative case uses the endings:

      Sing  Plur
1Dec   -am   -as
2Dec   -um   -os
3Dec   -em   -es
4Dec   -um   -us
5Dec   -em   -es

back to Latin Language...

Ac*cu"sa*tive (#), a. [F. accusatif, L. accusativus (in sense 2), fr. accusare. See Accuse.]

1.

Producing accusations; accusatory.

"This hath been a very accusative age."

Sir E. Dering.

2. Gram.

Applied to the case (as the fourth case of Latin and Greek nouns) which expresses the immediate object on which the action or influence of a transitive verb terminates, or the immediate object of motion or tendency to, expressed by a preposition. It corresponds to the objective case in English.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Ac*cu"sa*tive, n. Gram.

The accusative case.

 

© Webster 1913.