Vocative case
The
vocative case (also called the
fifth case) is the
case used for a
noun identifying the person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed and/or occasionally the
determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence. For example, in the sentence, "I don't know, John.",
John is a vocative expression indicating the party who is being addressed.
Historically, the vocative case was an element of the
Indo-European system of cases, and existed in
Latin,
Sanskrit, and Classical
Greek. Although it has been lost by many modern Indoeuropean languages, some languages have retained the vocative case to this day. Examples are
Modern Greek and
Slavic languages such as
Polish,
Czech,
Serbian,
Croatian,
Bosnian,
Ukrainian,
Bulgarian, and the modern
Celtic languages such as
Scottish Gaelic and
Irish. Among the
Romance languages the vocative was preserved in
Romanian. It also occurs in some non-Indoeuropean languages, such as
Georgian,
Arabic,
Chinese and
Korean.
In Latin the vocative case of a noun is the same as the
nominative, except for masculine singular second declension nouns that have the endings
-us or
-ius in the nominative case. An example would be the famous line from Shakespeare, "Et tu, Brute?" ("And you, Brutus?", commonly translated as "You too, Brutus?"), where
Brute is the vocative case, whilst
Brutus would be the
nominative case. When "-ius" nouns are put into the vocative, however, they lose this ending and replace it with a "ī". Therefore, "Julius" becomes "Julī". When Latin names in the vocative case are translated into
English, the nominative case is usually used, as
English simply uses the
nominative case for vocative expressions but sets them off from the rest of the sentences with pauses as interjections (rendered in writing as commas) (see below).
Four historical Indoeuropean languages
Take, for example, the word for "wolf":
Notes on notation: The elements separated with hyphens denote the stem, the so-called theme vowel of the case and the actual suffix. The symbol "Ø" means that there is no suffix in a place where other cases may have one. In Latin, e.g., the nominative case is
lupus and the vocative case is
lupe!, whereas the accusative case is
lupum. The asterisk in front of the Indoeuropean words means that they are merely hypothetical reconstructions, not based on any written sources.
In Polish, unlike in Latin, the vocative (
wołacz) is almost always different from the
nominative case and is formed according to a complex grammatical pattern. Here are some examples.
| Nominative case | Vocative case | | Pani Ewa (Ms Eve) | Pani Ewo! (Ms Eve!) |
| Pan profesor (Mr Professor) | Panie profesorze! (Mr Professor!) |
| Krzysztof (Christoph) | Krzysztofie! (Christoph!) |
| Krzyś (affectionate form of Krzysztof) | Krzysiu! |
| Ewusia (affectionate form of Ewa) | Ewusiu! |
| Marek (Mark) | Marku! |
| ciemność (darkness) | ciemności! |
| książka (book) | książko! |
|
In informal speech, the
nominative is increasingly used in place of the vocative, but this is regarded as a bad style in any formal situation.
In Czech, the vocative (
5. pád) is used in a similar way as in Polish. The vocative differs from the nominative in masculine and feminine
nouns in
singular.
| Nominative case | Vocative case | | paní Eva (Ms Eve) | paní Evo! (Ms Eve!) |
| pan profesor (Mr Professor) | pane profesore! (Mr Professor!) |
| Kryštof (Christoph) | Kryštofe! (Christoph!) |
| Marek (Mark) | Marku! |
| knížka (book) | knížko! |
|
In informal speech, it is usual that the male
surname (see also
Czech name) is in
nominative when addressing men, e.g.
pane Novák! instead of
pane Nováku! (Female surnames are
adjectives, thus they are the same in the nominative as well as in the vocative - see
Czech declension). Teachers often address their pupils with the surname in nominative. However, such addressing can seem impolite. Using the appropriate vocative is strongly recommended in the official and written styles.
Russian
Archaisms
In
Russian the vocative case is an obsolete feature, preserved only in certain cases of archaic usage.
*In "frozen" expressions, such as
proverbs. For example:
"Vrachu, istselisya sam" ("Physician, heal thyself"). Here "vrach" is "doctor", and "vrachu", with the
accent on the first syllable, is vocative; accenting the last syllable produces the
dative case.
* The most commonly heard vocative archaism in Russian is Боже мой! (
Bozhe moy!), "O, my God!" Бог (
Bog) is the nominative singular of "God." The final -g is softened to -zh- by the vocative suffix. Note also the frequent expression, "Go'spodi!", meaning "Lord" from the nominative "Gospo'd'".
*In
Church Slavonic, which is used in the
Russian Orthodox Church. For example, the
Patriarch would be addressed as
"vladyko", the
nominative form of which is "vladyka".
Therefore, most linguists consider Russian no longer to have a vocative case.
Vocative-like expressions
Nevertheless, Russian has vocative-like expressions, the syntax and usage being basically the same as described in the English language section.
Abridged names
Colloquial Russian has a form of
given names which some linguists consider to be a reemerging vocative case. It is applicable only to given names that end in a
vowel when used in a vocative-like expression:
"Len, gde ty?" ("Lena, where are you?") This is basically equivalent to
"Lena, gde ty?", the only difference being that the former version suggests a positive personal, emotional bond between the speaker and the person being addressed. This example, as well as the fact that this form is not genetically related to the archaic vocative (which would be
"Leno" in this example), leads other linguists to believe that this form is not the vocative case.
In Georgian, the vocative case is used for addressing the second singular and plural persons. For the word roots ending with a consonant, the vocative case suffix is -
o, and for the words ending with a vowel, there is no suffix for the vocative case (the suffix used to be -
v in old Georgian, but is now considered archaic). For example,
kats- is the root for the word "man." If one addresses someone with this word, it becomes,
katso!
Adjectives are also declined in the vocative case. Just like nouns, consonant final stem adjectives take the suffix -
o in the vocative case, and the vowel final stems are not changed. Compare:
lamazi kali "beautiful woman" (nominative case)
lamazo kalo! "beautiful woman!" (vocative case)
In the second phrase, both the adjective and the noun are declined. The second singular and plural personal pronouns are also declined in the vocative case.
Shen you(singular) and
tkven you (plural) in the vocative case become,
she! and
tkve!, with the drop of the final -
n. Therefore one could, for instance, say,
She lamazo kalo! "you beautiful woman!"
with the declination of all the elements.
Romanian
The vocative case in
Romanian is inherited from
Latin. Morphologically it is formed using specific endings, occasionally causing other morphophonemic changes (see also the article on
Romanian nouns):
* singular masculine/neuter: "
-e" as in
** "om" - "omule!" (
man, human being),
** "băiat" - "băiete!" or "băiatule!" (
boy),
** "văr" - "vere!" (
cousin),
** "Ion" - "Ioane!" (
John);
* singular feminine: "
-o" as in
** "soră" - "soro!" (
sister),
** "nebună" - "nebuno!" (
mad woman),
** "deşteaptă" - "deşteapto!" (
smart, but this vocative is always used ironically),
** "Ileana" - "Ileano!" (
Helen);
* plural, all genders: "
-lor" as in
** "fraţi" - "fraţilor!" (
brothers),
** "boi" - "boilor!" (
oxen, used toward people as an invective),
** "doamne şi domni" - "doamnelor şi domnilor!" (
ladies and gentlemen).
More often than not the vocative simply copies the nominative/accusative form, even when it does have its own. This happens because the vocative is often perceived as very direct and thus can seem rude.
Scottish Gaelic
In
Gaelic, the vocative case causes
lenition of the initial letter of names. In addition, male names are slenderized, if possible (that is, adds an 'i' before the final consonant). Also, the word
a is placed before the name unless it begins with a vowel, e.g.:
| Nominative case | Vocative case | | Caitrìona | a Chaitrìona |
| Domhnuill | a Dhomhnuill |
| Màiri | a Mhàiri |
| Seumas | a Sheumais |
| Una | Una |
|
Irish
The vocative case in
Irish operates in a similar fashion to Gaelic. The principal marker is the vocative particle
a which causes
lenition of the initial letter.
In the singular there is no special form except for first declension nouns. These are masculine nouns ending in a 'broad', i.e. non-palatal, consonant which is made 'slender', i.e. palatal, to form the singular vocative (as well as the singular genitive and plural nominative). Adjectives are also lenited. In many cases this means that (in the singular) masculine vocative expressions resemble the
genitive and feminine vocative expressions resemble the
nominative.
The vocative plural is usually the same as the nominative plural except once again for first declension nouns which show the vocative plural by adding
-a.
| Gender | masculine | feminine | m | f | | English | the big man | the big boy | the big woman | the big hen | Seán | Mary |
| Sg. | Nominative | an fear mór | an buachaill mór | an bhean mhór | an chearc mhór | Seán | Máire |
| Genitive | an fhir mhóir | an bhuachalla mhóir | na mná móire | na circe móire | Sheáin | Mháire |
| Vocative | a fhir mhóir | a bhuachaill mhóir | a bhean mhór | a chearc mhór | a Sheáin | a Mháire |
| Pl. | Nominative | na fir móra | na buachaillí móra | na mná móra | na cearca móra | |
| Genitive | na bhfear mór | na mbuachaillí móra | na mban mór | na gcearc mór |
| Vocative | a fheara móra | a bhuachaillí móra | a mhná móra | a chearca móra |
|
In Chinese, the vocative is used with name, kinship term or even positional title in casual situations. This is done by prefix 阿 (
a), it is interchageable with 亞 in
Cantonese. The use of vocatives is commonly found in Cantonese dialects.
For example:
*Someone named 陳小明 (pinyin: chen xiao ming) can predictably be addressed as 阿明 (pinyin: a ming)
*When addressing one's own father and mother it is often said: 阿爸 (a ba) and 阿媽 (a ma) which are equivalent to "dad" and "mom" in English. This practice can applied to other simple single syllable kinship terms. As honorific, a stranger can be addressed as 阿伯 (a bak) for an old man, and 阿婆 (a po) for an old woman. This is found commonly in Cantonese dialects.
*When addressing someone of authority such as a male police officer or even male teacher, particularly in
Hong Kong, 阿 Sir (a s" in common
Hong Kong English accent) would be the popular expression. Note also the anglicism in the Hong Kong speech. A female equivalent of the vocative expression, however, less common.
The vocative case in Korean is used only with first names in casual situations. This is done by suffixing 아 (
a) if the name ends in a consonant and 야 (
ya) if in a vowel:
미진은 집에 가겠어? (Mijin-eun chibe kagesseo?)
"Is Mijin going home?"
미진
아, 집에 가겠어? (Mijin-
a, chibe kagesseo?)
"Mijin, are you going home?
동배 머 해? (Dongbae meo hae?)
What is Dongbae doing?
동배
야, 머 해? (Dongbae-
ya, meo hae?)
"Dongbae, what are you doing?
The vocative case is indicated in Arabic by the particle
ya () placed before a noun. In English translations, this is often translated literally as
O instead of being omitted.
