Inlinguistics, case governmentisgovernment of the grammatical case of a noun, wherein a verb or adposition is said to 'govern' the grammatical case of its noun phrase complement, e.g. in German the preposition für 'for' governs the accusative case: für mich 'for me-accusative'.[1] Case government may modify the meaning of the verb substantially, even to meanings that are unrelated.
Case government is an important notion in languages with many case distinctions, such as Russian and Finnish. It plays less of a role in English, because English does not rely on grammatical cases, except for distinguishing subject pronouns (I, he, she, we, they) from other pronouns (me, him, her, us, them). In English, true case government is absent, but if the aforementioned subject pronouns are understood as regular pronouns in the accusative case, it occurs in sentences such as He found me (not for example *He found I).
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InStandard German, there are prepositions which govern each of the three oblique cases: Accusative, Dative, and Genitive. Case marking in German is largely observed on elements which modify the noun (e.g. determiners, adjectives). In the following table, examples of Löffel 'spoon' (Masculine), Messer 'knife' (Neuter), and Gabel 'fork' (Feminine) are in definite noun phrases for each of the four cases. In the oblique cases (i.e. non-Nominative), the prepositions supplied dictate different cases: ohne 'without' governs the accusative, mit 'with' governs the dative, and wegen 'because of' governs the genitive:[2]
| Case | Gender | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | Neuter | Feminine | |
| Nominative |
der the.M.NOM
Löffel spoon der Löffel the.M.NOM spoon 'the spoon'
|
das the.N.NOM
Messer knife das Messer the.N.NOM knife 'the knife'
|
die the.F.NOM
Gabel fork die Gabel the.F.NOM fork 'the fork'
|
| Accusative |
ohne without
den the.M.ACC
Löffel spoon ohne den Löffel without the.M.ACC spoon 'without the spoon'
|
ohne without
das the.N.ACC
Messer knife ohne das Messer without the.N.ACC knife 'without the knife'
|
ohne without
die the.F.ACC
Gabel fork ohne die Gabel without the.F.ACC fork 'without the fork'
|
| Dative |
mit with
dem the.M.DAT
Löffel spoon mit dem Löffel with the.M.DAT spoon 'with the spoon'
|
mit with
dem the.N.DAT
Messer knife mit dem Messer with the.N.DAT knife 'with the knife'
|
mit with
der the.F.DAT
Gabel fork mit der Gabel with the.F.DAT fork 'with the fork'
|
| Genitive |
wegen because.of
des the.M.GEN
Löffel-s spoon-M.GEN wegen des Löffel-s because.of the.M.GEN spoon-M.GEN 'because of the spoon'
|
wegen because.of
des the.N.GEN
Messer-s knife-N.GEN wegen des Messer-s because.of the.N.GEN knife-N.GEN 'because of the knife'
|
wegen because.of
der the.F.GEN
Gabel fork wegen der Gabel because.of the.F.GEN fork 'because of the fork'
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There are also two-way prepositions which govern the dative when the prepositional phrase denotes location (where at?), but the accusative when it denotes direction (to/from where?).
a.
in
in
sein-em
his-M.DAT
Palast
palace
in sein-em Palast
in his-M.DAT palace
'in his palace'
b.
in
in
sein-en
his-M.ACC
Palast
palace
in sein-en Palast
in his-M.ACC palace
'into his palace'
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This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (July 2022)
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In Finnish, certain verbs or groups of verbs require associated objects to employ particular cases or case-like suffixes regardless of the circumstances in which a case is normally used. For example, certain verbs expressing emotions such as rakastaa (to love), inhota (to hate), and pelätä (to fear) require the use of the partitive case: thus, "Minä rakastan sinua" (I love you), in which "sinua" is partitive although a complete concrete entity as object would normally take the genitive. A number of verbs associated with sensory perception such as maistua (to taste) and kuulostaa (to sound) employ the ablative-like suffix -lta/-ltä:『Jäätelö maistuu hyvältä』(Ice cream tastes good). And certain verbs referring to interests or hobbies such as pitää (to like) and nauttia (to enjoy) use the elative-like suffix -sta/-stä.[3]
In books on Finnish grammar written in Finnish the phenomenon of case government is usually referred to as "rektio", from the Latin rēctiō (control or governance).
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