A noun or pronoun in the oblique case can generally appear in any role except as subject, for which the nominative case is used.[1] The term objective case is generally preferred by modern English grammarians, where it supplanted Old English's dative and accusative.[2][3]
When the two terms are contrasted, they differ in the ability of a word in the oblique case to function as a possessive attributive; whether English has an oblique rather than an objective case then depends on how "proper" or widespread one considers the dialects where such usage is employed.
An oblique case often contrasts with an unmarked case, as in English oblique him and them versus nominative he and they. However, the term oblique is also used for languages without a nominative case, such as ergative–absolutive languages; in the Northwest Caucasian languages, for example, the oblique-case marker serves to mark the ergative, dative, and applicative case roles, contrasting with the absolutive case, which is unmarked.
Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu) nouns, pronouns and postpositions decline for an oblique case which exclusively serves to mark the grammatical case roles using the case-marking postpositions.[4][5][6][7][8] The oblique case has similarities with the vocative case in Hindustani. Some examples of the declension pattern are shown in the tables below:[9]
Pronouns
Case
1P
2P
3P
Nominative
मैं
ma͠i
तू
tū
ये
ye
Oblique
Ergative
इस
is
Regular
मुझ
mujh
तुझ
tujh
Noun
Case
Masculine
Feminine
Singular
Plural
Singular
Plural
Nominative
लड़का
laṛkā
लड़के
laṛke
लड़की
laṛkī
लड़कियाँ
laṛkiyā̃
Oblique
लड़के
laṛke
लड़कों
laṛkõ
लड़कियों
laṛkiyõ
Postpositions
Case
Masculine
Feminine
Singular
Plural
Singular
Plural
Nominative
का
kā
के
ke
की
kī
Oblique
के
ke
Singular pronouns are shown.
लड़का (laṛkā) = boy, लड़की (laṛkī) = girl
का (kā) is equivalent to the possessive 's of English
"Give that ball to me" дай тaзи топка на мен (day tazi topka na men)
(This oblique case is a relic of the original, more complex proto-Slavic system of noun cases, and there are remnants of other cases in Bulgarian, such as the vocative case of direct address)
An objective case is marked on the English personal pronouns and as such serves the role of the accusative and dative cases that other Indo-European languages employ. These forms are often called object pronouns. They serve a variety of grammatical functions which they would not in languages that differentiate the two. An example using first person singular objective pronoun me:
The pronoun me is not inflected differently in any of these uses; it is used for all grammatical relationships except the genitive case of possession (in standard English) and a non-disjunctive nominative case as the subject.
Old French had a nominative case and an oblique case, called cas sujet and cas régime respectively.
In Modern French, the two cases have mostly merged and the cas régime has survived as the sole form for the majority of nouns. For example, the word "conte (count, earl)":
Old French:
Nominative: li cuens (singular), li conte (plural)
In some cases, both the cas sujet and cas régime of one noun have survived but produced two nouns in Modern French with different meanings. For example, today's copain means "friend" and compagnon means "companion", but in Old French these were different declensions of the same noun.