Accusative absolute
The accusative absolute is a grammatical construction found in some languages. It is an absolute construction found in the accusative case.
Greek
[edit]In ancient Greek, the accusative case is used adverbially with participles of impersonal verbs, similarly to the genitive absolute.[1] For example:
συνδόξαν
sundóxan
seeming good-ACC
τῷ
tôi
the-MASC.DAT.SG
πατρὶ
patrì
father-DAT
καὶ
kaì
and
τῇ
têi
the-FEM.DAT.SG
μητρὶ
mētrì
mother-DAT
γαμεῖ
gameî
marries
τὴν
tḕn
the-FEM.ACC.SG
Κυαξάρου
Kuaxárou
Cyaxares-gen
θυγατέρα
thugatéra
daughter-ACC
"It seeming good to his father and mother, he marries the daughter of Cyaxares." (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.5.28)
German
[edit]In German, a noun phrase can be put in the accusative to indicate that the sentence's subject has the property it describes.[2] For example:
Neben
next to
ihm
him
saß
sat
der
the
dünnhaarige
thin-haired
Pianist,
pianist
den
the-MASC.ACC.SG
Kopf
head
im
in the
Nacken,
neck
und
and
lauschte.
listened
"The thin-haired pianist, his head back (lit. his head in his neck), sat next to him and listened."
Latin
[edit]The accusative absolute is sometimes found in place of the ablative absolute in the Latin of Late Antiquity as, for example, in the writings of Gregory of Tours and Jordanes. This likely arose when the pronunciations of the ablative and accusative singulars merged, since the final -m of the accusative singular was no longer pronounced, having been fading since the Classical era. The accusative absolute is also found with plural nouns whose ablative and accusative are not similar in pronunciation.