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.
The vocative case in various languages
Latin
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":
| Case | Proto-Indo-European | Latin | Classical Greek | Sanskrit |
| Nominative case | *wl̥kʷ-o-s | lup-u-s | λύκ-ο-ς (lúk-o-s) | vr̥k-a-s |
| Vocative case | *wl̥kʷ-e-Ø | lup-e-Ø | λύκ-ε (lúk-e-Ø) | vr̥k-a-Ø |
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.
Polish
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.
Czech
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
Historical Vocative
In historical Slavic vocative has been lost in Russian, and currently can only be found in certain cases of archaic expressions. Two of those expressions are very common in colloquial Russian: "Боже!" (Bozhe, vocative of "Бог" Bog, "God"), often also used in expression "Боже мой!" (Bozhe moy, "My God!"), and "Господи!" (Gospodi, vocative of "Господь" Gospod, "Lord"). Both expressions are used to express strong emotions (much like English "O, my God!"), and are often combined ("Господи, Боже мой"). More examples of historical vocative can be be found in other Biblical quotes that are sometimes used as proverbs, e.g. "Врачу, исцелися сам" (Vrachu, istselisya sam - "Doctor, heal thyself", cf. nominative "врач", vrach). Vocative forms are also used in modern Church Slavonic. The patriarch and bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church are addressed as "владыко"(vladyko, hegemon, cf. nominative "владыка", 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 a family 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, which is optionally dropped in the vocative form: "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. In addition to given names, this form is often used with words like "мама" (mama, mom) and "папа" (papa, dad), which would be respectively "shortened" to "мам" (mam) и "пап" (pap).
Such usage is differes from historical vocative, which would be "Leno" in the example above) and is not genetically related to such historical usage.
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.
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 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.
| 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 | |||
Chinese
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 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.
Korean
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?"
미진아, 집에 가겠어? (Mijin-a, chibe kagesseo?)
"Mijin, are you going home?
동배 머 해? (Dongbae meo hae?)
What is Dongbae doing?
동배야, 머 해? (Dongbae-ya, meo hae?)
"Dongbae, what are you doing?
Arabic
The vocative case is indicated in Arabic by the particle ya (Arabic: يا) placed before a noun. In English translations, this is often translated literally as O instead of being omitted.