Re: cases

Nik wrote:

> "Thomas R. Wier" wrote:
> > That would make them "core" and "oblique" cases, respectively.
>
> But those aren't the terms traditionally used.  They're called
> Nominative/Accusative and Genitive/Dative.  There's also a Vocative case
> which is usually the same as nominative/accusative, but does differ for
> some nouns.
Calling the Romanian cases "nominative/accusative" and "genitive/dative"
is about like calling English's cases "nominative/vocative" and
"accusative/dative/ablative/instrumental/locative" just because Latin happened
to use those names for those functions.  The names of the cases in a given
language ought to be given according to the function of the cases in that language,
and not just because some other language happened to have cases which overlap
with those of the language in question.  Remember:  every language's case system
is unique, and so the labels we apply to them are fairly arbitrary.

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Tom Wier   |     "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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