Talk:Vocative case
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[edit] Marking vocative in English
I'm not completely familiar with the technical jargon of verb tenses in English (sorry), but what do you mean when you say that, in English, the vocative case isn't marked? Reason I ask is because of the form "Sing in me, O muse", which is vocative. I don't believe "O" has any other function in English, so is that not a mark? -- PaulDrye
I couldn't think of any other use for O either but you can make English vocative case sentences without O or any other mark. --rmhermen
Given vocative examples without marker can be made in English, that justifies the "unmarked" description. The existance of O I think qualifies as practically vestigial, rather like the word both doesn't indicate English actually has a dual number in addition to singular and plural. -- kd5mdk
[edit] Addressing not only a person
The article currently states: The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed. At least in Polish and I'm almost sure that in other Slavic languages as well, a vocative case of any verb may be used i.e. not only people, but also abstracts (eg. ciemności! = O, darkness) and objects (książko! = O, book) may be addressed and if so, these nouns are then used in the vocative case. Of course the two latter situations are rare compared to addressing people, but sometimes these forms are indeed used. The section Vocative-like expressions in English also provides examples that addressing people is not the only use of this case. As I hope to be agreed with, now I'm going to add appropriate examples to the Polish section of this article, but would like someone to update the article's initial paragraph as I'm having problems with terminology. Gdabski 23:11, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Vocative Cases in Arabic, Chinese, and Korean?
I have removed the references to vocative cases in Arabic, Chinese, and Korean, because they are not "vocative cases" in the grammatical sense. "A" or "ya" as described in Korean or Arabic are either interjections or grammatical particles, and they are not grammatically necessary. In Chinese, the use of "a" as the first syllable for calling someone is not grammatically necessary, but rather a common way of constructing nicknames. 阿明 is a nickname rather than the vocative case, as we can still use the same word to refer to him even if the name is not used in the vocative case. Same as in English, a person named Robert may be called Bob. However, the word "Bob" is not restricted in the vocative case, but the nickname can be used in the nominative, dative, or accusative cases. Wng 05:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
- Please cite your source, discuss and having reached a concensus before unilaterally delete sections, especially ones with multiple contributions, thanks. I don't speak Korean nor Arabic so I won't comment on them. But when you said "grammatical particle", isn't that the general classification of a vocative particle?
- You are correct in that 阿 does not strictly indicate vocative case just as in the example in the intro: "John" itself is a vocative address. 阿 is just one way to express vocative, especially in Cantonese. Yes, it's by no means necessary but doesn't mean it's not a case either.
- See the following links citing the use of 阿 as vocative and/or address:[1][2][3][4] --Kvasir 08:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
- I won't touch the Arabic part then, as I don't speak Arabic and I'll let native speakers comment that. As for Korean, if it is used only in casual conversations and it is not required, then it means that Korean does not have the vocative case. English has lost the vocative case, and from the description, Korean is similar (from the discussion above, English can have the word "O" mark the vocative case, but no "O" is acceptable as well). In Chinese, the addition of 阿 is not required, as also acknowledged above. Although its use may be primarily vocative, 阿明 can be used in the nominative, dative, accusative, and all other grammatical cases without any grammatical declension. My opinion is that this article should be limited to languages that have noun declension with a vocative case or languages that have necessary morphemes (otherwise considered grammatically incorrect) to indicate the vocative case. Vestigial vocative cases (as seen in various Indo-European languages) that have morphemes making them different from other cases, as is the case of Venetian, may be worth mentioning. I have read the sources you cited, but none of them talks about grammar. Rather they're about culture, and how people address each other. All languages and cultures will have some kind of addressing each other, but this article is about grammar and should be limited to that. I placed the dubious mark in the article so other users may comment. --Wng 10:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
