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Vocative case
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The vocative 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.
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Encyclopedia
The vocative 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 Indo-European languages, some languages have retained the vocative case to this day. Examples are Modern Greek, Albanian, Baltic languages such as Lithuanian and Latvian, Slavic languages such as Polish, Czech, Croatian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Russian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, and the modern Celtic languages such as Scottish Gaelic and Irish. Among the Romance languages the vocative was preserved in Romanian: it is also visible sometimes, in languages such as Catalan which employ the personal article but drop it in front of vocative forms. It also occurs in some non-Indo-European languages, such as Georgian, Arabic, Chinese, and Korean.
The vocative case in various languages
Latin
In Latin the form of the vocative case of a noun is the same as the nominative, except for 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?" (commonly translated as "And you, 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 "i". Therefore, "Julius" becomes "Juli". When Latin names in the vocative case are translated into English, the nominative case is usually used, as English normally 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) but may also be shown by prefacing the noun or noun phrase with the English word "O," especially in poetic or solemn rhetorical speech: …clothe you, O ye of little faith. (see also Apostrophe (figure of speech) and below). The first person possessive adjective Meus also has an irregular Vocative case form, "Mi". Adjectives of the 1st and 2nd declensions when agreeing with a masculine object use the endings of 2nd declension -us nouns: thus if a 1st/2nd adjective is agreeing with "amice" (Vocative of a masculine singular "friend"), then it will also have the irregular -e ending: "amice magne".
A simple first declention example would be:
"Equum specta, Anna."
This means:
"Watch the horse, Anna.
The name Anna can be placed in any part of the sentence that makes sense. For instance:
"Watch, Anna, the horse." or "Anna, watch the horse."
Four historical Indo-European 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 Proto-Indo-European words means that they are theoretical reconstructions, not attested in a written source. The symbol ? (ring below) indicates a consonant serving as a vowel; it should appear directly below the "l" or "r" in these examples, but may appear after them due to font display issues.
Polish
In Polish, the vocative (wolacz) is formed as follows: Feminine nouns usually take -o, except those ending in -sia, -cia, -nia, and -dzia which take -u, and those ending in -sc which take -i. Masculine nouns generally follow the complex pattern of the locative case, with the exception of a handful of words such as Bóg ? Boze ("God"), syn ? synu ("son"), ojciec ? ojcze ("father") and chlopiec ? chlopcze ("boy"). Neuter nouns and all plural nouns are the same as in the nominative case. Here are some examples:
In informal neutral speech, the nominative is increasingly used in place of the vocative, but this is regarded as bad style in formal situations. However, the vocative remains popular for addressing people in an offensive or condescending manner, e.g.
- Zamknij sie, pajacu! ("Shut up you buffoon!")
- Co sie gapisz, idioto? ("What are you staring at, idiot!")
- Nie znasz sie, baranie, to nie pisz ("Stop writing, idiot, you don't know what you're talking about!")
- Spadaj wiesniaku! ("Get lost, peasant!")
Use of the vocative does not, by itself, imply a negative tone, and in informal situations it is sometimes used instead of nominative, especially with nicknames and among teenagers. It is often employed in affectionate contexts such as Kocham Cie Krzysiu! ("I love you, Chris!")
Czech
In Czech, the vocative (5. pád) differs from the nominative in masculine and feminine nouns in singular.
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.
Bulgarian
Unlike the other Slavic languages, Bulgarian has entirely lost its noun declension. However, Bulgarian has mainly preserved its vocative case.
Traditional male names usually have a vocative case.
- ???? (nominative case)
- ????? (vocative case)
- ?????
- ?????
- ?????
- ??????
- ???????
- ????????
Males are almost always called using the vocative used in colloquial speech. The common case form is considered punctilious or ridicule.
However, vocative phrases like ???????? ???????? (Mr. Minister) have almost completely given place to the corresponding common case forms, especially in official writings.
Some proper nouns are also frequently used in vocative:
- ??? (god)
- ???? ([,] God[,])
- ?????? (lord)
- ??????? ([,] Lord[,])
- ?????, ????? ??????? (Jesus, Jesus Christ)
- ??????, ?????? ??????
- ?????? (comrade)
- ???g???
- ??? (priest)
- ????
- ???? (frog)
- ???? ([,] Frog[,])
- ?????? (fool)
- ??????? (you, fool!)
Modern and foreign names may have a vocative form but it is not used (???????, instead of simply ?????? (Richard) sounds strange and funny)
Vocative case forms also normally exist for female given names:
- ?????
- ?????
- ????
- ????
- ?????
- ?????
- ?????
- ?????
Except for the forms ending in -?, these are considered rude in colloquial speech and are normally avoided. Exception are female kinship terms, whose vocative is always used: ???? - ???? (Granny), ???? - ???? (Mom), ???? - ????? (ant), ?????? - ?????? (sister).
Russian
Historical vocative
The historical Slavic vocative has been lost in Russian, and currently can only be found in certain cases of archaic expressions. Few of those expressions, mostly of religious origin, are very common in colloquial Russian: "????!" (Bozhe, vocative of "???" Bog, "God"), often also used in expression "???? ???!" (Bozhe moy, "My God!"), and "???????!" (Gospodi, vocative of "???????" Gospod, "Lord"), which can also be expressed as "??????? ??????!" (Gospodi Iisuse!, Iisuse vocative of "?????" Iisus, "Jesus"). Both expressions are used to express strong emotions (much like English "O my God!"), and are often combined ("???????, ???? ???"). More examples of historical vocative can be found in other Biblical quotes that are sometimes used as proverbs, e.g. "?????, ???????? ???" (Vrachu, istselisya sam - "Physician, heal thyself", cf. nominative "????", vrach). Vocative forms are also used in modern Church Slavonic. The patriarch and bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church are addressed as "???????"(vladyko, hegemon, cf. nominative "???????", vladyka). In the latter case the vocative form is often also incorrectly used as nominative to refer to bishops and the patriarchs.
Neo-vocative
In modern colloquial Russian given names and a small family of terms often take a special "shortened" form that some linguists consider to be a reemerging vocative case. This form is applied only to given names and nouns that end in -a and -?, which are optionally dropped in the vocative form: "???, ??? ???" ("Lena, where are you?"). This is basically equivalent to "????, ??? ???", the only difference being that the former version suggests a positive personal, emotional bond between the speaker and the person being addressed. Names ending in -? acquire a soft sign in this case: "???!" = "???!" ("Olga!"). In addition to given names, this form is often used with words like "????" (mama, mom) and "????" (papa, dad), which would be respectively "shortened" to "???" (mam) and "???" (pap).
Such usage differs from historical vocative (which would be "Leno" in the example above) and is not related to such historical usage.
Ukrainian
Ukrainian has retained the vocative case, in contrast to the other, closely-related East Slavic languages, Belarusian and Russian. See Ukrainian grammar#Morphology for details.
Lithuanian
In Lithuanian, all nouns have a vocative case, which is nearly always different from a nominative case (with an exception of plurals and some feminine nouns). Replacing the vocative case with the nominative, however, remains a common mistake in everyday speech. The form that a given noun takes depends on the declension and, sometimes, gender:
-as "vyras" (m) – "vyre" (man, husband)
-ias, -ys "svecias" (m), "gaidys" (m) – "svety" (guest), "gaidy" (rooster)
-is "brolis" (m) – "broli" (brother)
Exceptions: nouns ending in -ejas, such as "vejas" – "vejau" (wind) and "siuvejas" – "siuvejau" (sewer).
Male names belonging to this declension have an -ai ending in the vocative case: "Jonas" – "Jonai". Diminutive forms are normally used without an ending ("broliuk") (little brother), but a full form is also valid ("broliukai").
-a "galva" (f) – "galva" (head)
-ia "vyšnia" (f) – "vyšnia" (cherry)
-i "marti" (f) – "marcia/marti" (daughter-in-law)
Female names, such as Rasa, Ruta, etc., are spelled in the same way in the vocative case, but undergo a stress change. In the nominative case the last syllable needs to be stressed; in the vocative case, the second last: Ilona (nominative) – Ilona (vocative).
-e "kate" (f) – "kate" (cat)
Some nouns of this declension (both proper ones and not) are also stressed differently: "aikšte" – "aikšte" (square). The ending of diminutive forms is usually omitted: "sesute" – "sesut" (little sister).
-us "sunus" (m) – "sunau" (son)
-is "dantis" (m), "avis" (f) – "dantie" (tooth), "avie" (sheep)
-uo "vanduo" (m), "sesuo" (f) – "vandenie" (water), "seserie" (sister)
-e "dukte" (f) – "dukterie" (daughter)
Celtic languages
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.:
The name “Hamish” is just the English spelling of “Sheumais”, and thus is actually a Gaelic vocative. Likewise, the name “Vairi” is an English spelling of “Mhàiri”.
Irish
The vocative case in Irish operates in a similar fashion to Scottish 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.
Other Celtic languages
Manx has the vocative case, at least to the extent of initial lenition. So has Welsh. Breton seems to have lost the vocative.
Icelandic
The vocative case can generally not be found in Icelandic, although a very few words retain an archaic vocative declension from Latin, like the word Jesús, which is in vocative Jesú. This comes from Latin, as the Latin word for Jesus is simply Jesus and the vocative of that word is Jesu.
Example:
- Jesús (nominative) elskar þig.
- Jesus loves you.
- Ó Jesú (vocative), frelsari okkar.
- O Jesus, our saviour.
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),
- "baiat" - "baiete!" or "baiatule!" (boy),
- "var" - "vere!" (cousin),
- "Ion" - "Ioane!" (John);
- singular feminine: "-o" as in
- "sora" - "soro!" (sister),
- "nebuna" - "nebuno!" (mad woman),
- "desteapta" - "desteapto!" (smart one (f) , but this vocative is always used sarcastically),
- "Ileana" - "Ileano!" (Helen);
This female vocative ending is obviously a Slavic borrowing
- plural, all genders: "-lor" as in
- "frati" - "fratilor!" (brothers),
- "boi" - "boilor!" (oxen, used toward people as an invective),
- "doamne si domni" - "doamnelor si 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.
Venetian
The vocative case in Venetian is not marked by any ending, since Venetian has lost case endings as most Romance languages, but it is still visible on feminine proper names due to the absence of the determiner, i.e. the personal article La / L' which usually precedes feminine names in other cases, even in predicates. Thus, vocative case is distinguished from both nominative and accusative cases although none of them bears endings nor prepositions. On the contrary, masculine names and other nouns only rely on intonation and voice breaks.
| Case | Fem. proper name | Masc. proper name and other nouns |
|---|
| Nom./Acc. | la Marìa la vien qua / varda la Marìa!
Mary comes here / look at Mary! | Marco el vien qua / varda Marco!
Mark comes here / look at Mark! | | Vocative | Marìa vien qua! / varda Marìa!
Mary come here! / look, Mary! | Marco vien qua! / varda, Marco!
Mark come here! / look, Mark! |
The (presence/absence of the) personal article in feminine proper names also distinguishes the vocative case from predicates, differently from the definite article la of common nouns which is dropped even in predicative constructions.
| Case | Fem. proper name | Masc. proper name and other nouns |
|---|
| Pred. | so' mi la Marìa
I am Mary | so' mi Marco / so' tornà maestra
I am Mark / I am a teacher again | | Vocative | so' mi Marìa!
It's me, Mary! | so' mi, Marco! / so' tornà, maestra!
it's me, Mark! / I am back, teacher! |
In some vernacular German, where it is common to use the (gender-)appropriate article before a person's name, the article is, as in Venetian, omitted when calling the person.
Georgian
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.
Chinese
In the Chinese language, the vocative appears in different ways in different regional languages. is used with name, kinship term or even positional title in casual situations. Some southern Chinese regional languages add a prefix such as ? (ah). In Cantonese, ? a is interchageable with ? ya.
For example:
- Someone named ??? (chan siu ming) can predictably be addressed as ?? (ah ming)
- When addressing one's own father and mother one may call out: ??! (Ah ba!) and ??! (Ah 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 ?? (a bak) for an old man, and ?? (a po) for an old woman. This usage is common in several southern dialects.
- When addressing someone of authority such as a male police officer or even male teacher, particularly in Hong Kong, ? Sir (a sœ 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.
- Similarly, in Taiwan one polite way (most often used by school children) to call out to a soldier is "???! A bing ge!" (Soldier brother!) That is like calling out "Officer!" to hail a policeman in the United States (and not like calling out, "Yo! Copper!")
Discussion of the vocative in Chinese can be found in The Grammar of Spoken Chinese by the eminent Chinese linguist, Y.R. Chao, p. 66.
Korean
The vocative case in Korean is used only with first names in casual situations. This is done by suffixing ? (a) if the name ends in a consonant and ? (ya) if in a vowel:
??? ?? ???? (Mijin-eun chibe kagesseo?)
"Is Mijin going home?"
???, ?? ???? (Mijin-a, chibe kagesseo?)
"Mijin, are you going home?
?? ? ?? (Dongbae meo hae?)
What is Dongbae doing?
???, ? ?? (Dongbae-ya, meo hae?)
"Dongbae, what are you doing?
Japanese
The vocative case in Japanese is formed with null morpheme, i.e. without any specific particle. Examples:
- ???????????????? (Mr. Tanaka shall visit the boss)
- ????? ??????????? (Mr. Tanaka, [please] visit the boss)
The particle ? marks the subject of the first sentence, i.e. it is the nominative case marker; the particle ? marks the object, i.e. it is the accusative case marker.
In the second sentence, there is no particle following ???? thus making it vocative.
Note that particles ? and ? are also frequently omitted in colloquial speech without making a word vocative. Example: ????????? Mr. Tanaka visits the boss.
Arabic
Properly speaking, Arabic only has three cases, the nominative, accusative and genitive. However, a meaning similar to that conveyed by the vocative case in other languages is indicated by the use of the particle ya placed before a noun. In English translations, this is often translated literally as O instead of being omitted.
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