Re: Noun Cases

I believe I found the answer after asking the question. I found a list
of cases. It defines Causative as "indicating causation by" and
Instrumental as "indicating means by which." So I guess it's the
difference between "he was hit BY a tree" and "he was hit WITH a tree"?
Or could Instrumental be used for both of these?

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Michael David Martin, Master Mason
S. W. Hackett Lodge #574
Free & Accepted Masons of California


On Feb 28, 2004, at 8:01 PM, Nik Taylor wrote:
> In addition, Michael Martin wrote:
>>
>> Also on the subject, what is the difference between the causative and
>> instrumental cases, or is there a difference?
>
> I've never heard of a causative case, but I would imagine that it would
> be a case that was only used for the causee, as in "The mother made HER
> SON eat the peas", whereas the instrumental would be used in a sentence
> like "The boy ate the peas WITH A FORK".  Some languages use
> instrumental to mark the causee, while others use other oblique cases,
> such as dative (I would say that English could probably be considered,
> syntactically, to be in that category, as the causee acts very much
> like
> a normal indirect object)