What languages ​​have the vocative case. How to build the vocative form of words

The vocative case form (from Latin word"vocativus") is used to identify the object to which the appeal is used. As a rule, this applies to nouns. It should be noted that such a form is conditionally called a case, since if we talk about grammatical semantics, then such a form is not a case at all.

This case form has its roots in the Indo-European languages. The vocative case was used in languages ​​such as ancient Greek, Latin, and even Sanskrit. Later, in most Indo-European languages, this case ceased to exist, but some language systems still retained such a case form.

These languages ​​today include: Romani, a number of Celtic and Baltic languages, Greek and some Slavic. If we talk about the Romanesque group, then the modern Romanian also has this form. The vocative case is also used today by people who speak Arabic, Georgian and Korean.

In Russian, the beginning of the death of this form dates back to about the 11th century, when a mixture of the vocative with the nominative began to be traced. Later, this form was still encountered, but it was used only with a respectful appeal to people who had high rank. A similar use was recorded in the 14th-15th centuries (in birch bark letters). For example: “Father!”, “Lord!”, “Prince!” etc.

From colloquial speech the vocative form went out in the middle of the 16th century. And only in the church language did an address of this kind continue to exist, for example, “Vladyko!”

Until 1918, in Russian grammars, this case was the seventh in the list of cases. Today, if such an obsolete form has been preserved, then it is used as a form of the nominative case, for example: "Vladyka Moses read a prayer service." But some come out in defense of the pure Russian language and call for the complete abandonment of the archaic form.

But in spite of everything, the obsolete form still continues to exist in some archaisms. Here we are talking about sustainable phraseological turns, which include such archaisms. In the literature, the vocative form is used in some cases:

For deliberate archaization of the text;

To give the Ukrainian heroes of the works a certain "Ukrainization";

When using Church Slavonic quotations in the text.

It should be noted that the use of such case form in the church language (it should be noted that the Church Slavonic language is the officially recognized language in which services are conducted in Russian Orthodox Churches) on a regular basis has led to the fact that in addition to the speech of clergy, in the speech of believers and parishioners, one can increasingly hear obsolete forms of the vocative case. Such forms also often appear in new Russian texts on religious subjects.

Many hymnographic texts have been studied, from the analysis of which it follows that the use of the vocative case form is associated with traditional canons with complete disregard for grammatical norms. Moreover, the obsolete vocative form in some cases is used not only for proper names, but also for inanimate names (common nouns). For example: “image”, “warmth”, “bridge”, “protected”, “stone”.

Today, nouns related to the first declension and having null ending. For example: “Kat”, “Mash”, “Sing”, “mom”, “grandfather”, etc. As we can see, these forms completely coincide with the genitive case forms plural. But such a topic is still a subject of controversy for linguists, since not everyone wants to single out such a form in a separate category of grammar.

Doctor of Philology.

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When we turn to Church Slavonic material, it often rightly seems to us that the difficulties that may arise for those who turn to ancient text associated with the understanding of grammatical phenomena.
Naturally, the grammatical system ancient language developed quite actively, and in the modern language the grammar has been simplified in many respects, compared with the ancient period. Nevertheless, the remnants and fragments of the grammatical system of antiquity of the same Church Slavonic may well be found by us in the material of the modern language.
This applies to such interesting grammatical phenomena associated with the nominal system of the Church Slavonic and Russian languages, for example, with the case system or the number system. Historically, in addition to the six cases known to us, there was also vocative, or vocative form, that is, a case that had a meaning and performed the function of referring to persons or objects. In fact, as soon as we compare this material with the modern language, we see that it also has a certain vocative form, when we take the words of the first declension, cut off the endings from them and get a form like: “mum”, “dad”, "Mash", "Sash". This is the form that we use to address, but it does not have a sign that we would perceive as a case, that is, a special ending. It's just a clipping of the ending, and this is not a fact of modern literary language, but the fact is the language of the colloquial. Nevertheless, functionally this is also an appeal, however, in this way we only address a person, and historically it was possible to address both persons and objects. But here, too, we can see that archaic forms of the vocative case are presented in the modern language, which are sometimes even used, but not as appeals, but as interjections. This is traditional examples like "Lord", "God", "Father". As you remember, in Pushkin's famous fairy tale, a fish swims up and asks: "What do you need, old man?" Not “old man”, but “older”, not “father”, but “father”, not “God”, but “God” - there is a special ending “e”, and in the form “Lord” - “Lord” ending. We see that historically this vocative form, or vocative case, had definite ending, two of them are quite clearly represented in modern language: "God" and "Lord." Apparently, historically, these were different declensions, so they have different endings.
If we take the forms set expressions, for example, about a person who must first pay attention to himself, decide own problem, and then deal with the problems of others, we say "to the doctor, heal yourself." This is an expression from the Gospel, which Christ uses as an expression that already then had a proverbial character. “Doctor” and “doctor” - we see that there is one more ending - “y”. If modern words“Doctor” and “God”, and historical ones are one declension, but they have different endings, apparently, this means that inside each declension there were some peculiarities that forced the use of different endings. This was due to the fact that words like “God” have hard final consonant stems, while “doctor” has just a soft one, but this is a special, mixed variety in Church Slavonic. In any case, we see that the difference in endings shows that within one declination there could also be special cases and varieties.
If we take the well-known prayer “Virgin Mary, rejoice”, then in the words “Virgin Mary”, “Devo”, “Mary-e” we see how the vocative case is presented in forms that in modern language belong to the 1st declension ( on "a" feminine, masculine), and in Church Slavonic grammar this is the second declension. We can observe these forms, and such an attentive attitude can point us to the ancient picture in a larger way.
The form of the dual number - the use of some special form of number in relation to two persons or objects - is also quite preserved in the Russian language. For example, in the form “with my own eyes”, which literally means “in two eyes”, some special ending “yu”, which also marks some fragment ancient system. Or cases like: "two eyes", "two slaves", etc., where we think it is Genitive singular, and historically this is the form of the dual number, which was simply rethought in the language, as a construction with the genitive case of a singular noun.
When we turn to an ancient text, we observe that some phenomena and elements are completely preserved in the modern language, but at the same time, perhaps, they have undergone some kind of rethinking. As we can see, the form of "two slaves", which was historically, has not visually changed even now.

Recently I came across a mention of the fact that there are more cases in Russian than the six that we studied at school. I began to dig further and, in general, counted as many as thirteen of them. This allowed me to deeply feel the essence of the concepts of case and declension, and even more to fall in love with the Russian language.

We more or less “know everything” about the six official cases, so I’ll immediately write about what I managed to dig up about the other seven: quantitative-separative, deprivative, expectant, local, vocative, transformative and countable. I will comment on everything without references to sources, because I don’t remember them at all; all this information can be collected bit by bit by slipping the names of cases on Yandex and paying attention to the fact that in the places found it was about the Russian language. In all discussions I will use own feeling language, so I can’t promise absolute correctness, but I hope that all this will be interesting to someone. I would be very glad to competent comments or just the opinions of sympathizers.

quantitative-separating the case is a variation of the genitive, in the sense that it answers its own questions and indicates some of its functions. Sometimes it can be easily replaced by a parent, but sometimes it will sound clumsy. For example, you offer a cup of (whom? What?) tea or (whom? What?) Tea? Note that of the classic six cases, the form "tea" falls under the dative case (to whom? To what?), but here it answers the question of the genitive (to whom? What?). Some will say that the form "tea" sounds somehow archaic, rustic. Not sure if this is true; I would rather say "tea" than "tea" or reformulate the sentence altogether to use accusative(“Will you have tea?”). Here's another example: "set the heat." Rustic? Probably not. And the option "set the heat" cuts the ear. More examples: “pour juice”, “add speed”.

depriving the case is used together with the negation of the verb in phrases like "not to know the truth" (but "to know the truth"), "not to have the right" (but "to have the right"). It cannot be said that in the negative version we use the genitive case, because in some cases the words remain in the accusative form: “do not drive a car” (and not cars), “do not drink vodka” (and not vodka). This case arises only if we believe that any one specific case must correspond to each function of a noun. Then the deprivative case is such a case, the forms of which can correspond to the forms of the genitive or accusative. Sometimes they are interchangeable, but in some cases it is noticeably more convenient for us to use only one of the two options, which speaks in favor of the superfluous case. For example, “not a step back” (meaning “not to do”) sounds much more Russian than “not a step back”.

expectant the case is a rather complicated phenomenon. We can wait (be afraid, beware, be shy) for someone or something, that is, it seems that we must use the genitive case with these verbs. However, sometimes this genitive case suddenly takes the form of an accusative. For example, we are waiting for (whom? What?) Letters, but (whom? What?) Mom. And vice versa - “wait for a letter” or “wait for mom” - somehow not in Russian (especially the second one). Of course, if these forms are considered acceptable, then there is no waiting case, just with the verb wait (and its counterparts) you can use both the genitive and accusative cases. However, if these forms are not recognized as acceptable (which I, personally, am inclined to), then an expectant case arises, which for some words coincides with the genitive, and for some - with the accusative. In this case, we need a criterion for how to inflect a given word.

Let's try to understand the difference between the expressions "wait for a letter" and "wait for mom." When we wait for a letter, we do not expect any activity from the letter. We are not waiting the letter itself, namely letters, the delivery of a letter, the arrival of a letter, that is, some phenomenon associated with its appearance in our mailbox. Writing plays a passive role here. But when we are waiting for mom, we are not waiting for “the delivery of mom by a taxi driver to the place of our meeting,” but rather mom herself, hoping that she will hurry to arrive on time (while it is quite possible that she will use a taxi). That is, it turns out that if an object expressed by a noun can influence its own appearance, then we are waiting for it in the form of an accusative case (it will be “guilty” if it is late), and if the object itself cannot do anything, then we We are waiting in parental form. Perhaps it has something to do with the concept of animation? It may well be, it happens; for example, in the accusative case there is also a similar effect - for inanimate objects in the second declension, it coincides with the nominative ("sit on a chair").

Local case is the most understandable of all special cases. It exists, it is used by each of us, its forms are obvious, they cannot be replaced by other words, and therefore it is very strange that it is not included in the school list. At prepositional two functions can be distinguished (there are more, but we will ignore this): an indication of the object of speech and an indication of the place or time of the action. For example, you can talk about (whom? what?) Square, and you can stand on (whom? what?) Square, think about (whom? what?) room and be in (whom? what?) room. The first case is called "explanatory case" and the second case is called "local". For the square and the room, these forms do not depend on the function. But, for example, at the nose, forest, snow, paradise, years - they depend. We talk about the nose, but the weekend is on our nose; we think about the year, but the birthday is only once a year. You can't walk in the forest, you can only walk in the forest.

The funny thing is that here it is not the preposition that controls the case, but the meaning. That is, if we come up with a construction with the preposition "in", when being in the corresponding place is not meant, we will definitely want to use the explanatory, and not the local case. For example, "I know a lot about the forest." If you say “I know a lot about the forest”, then it immediately seems that you know a lot only when you are in the forest, and, moreover, you forgot to say what exactly you know a lot about.

Vocative case is used when referring to the object expressed by the noun. AT different sources two sets of examples are given. One group includes short forms of names used only when addressing (Vas, Kol, Sing, Len, Ol) and some other words (mum, dad). Another group includes obsolete (female) or religious (God, Lord) forms of address. I don't like the idea of ​​taking this as a case, because it doesn't seem to me that the resulting word is a noun at all. Therefore, by the way, possessive in Russian it is not a case, since the words "Vasin" or "mother" are not nouns, but adjectives. But what is the part of speech then "Ol"? Somewhere I met the opinion that this is an interjection, and, perhaps, I agree with this. Indeed, "Ol" differs from "hey" only in that it is formed from the name "Olya", but in fact it is just an exclamation aimed at attracting attention.

transformative case (also inclusive) is used in phrases like "went to astronauts" or "ran for president." At school, we were told that all cases except the nominative are indirect, but this is a simplification; the essence of indirection is not entirely in this. The word is put into one of the indirect cases when it is not the subject. AT English language oblique case only one, which is why it is sometimes called “indirect”. Its forms differ from direct only in a few words (I/me, we/us, they/them, etc.).

If, when analyzing the phrase “he went to astronauts”, we will assume that “cosmonauts” is a plural, then we need to put this word in the accusative case, and it turns out that “he went to (whom? What?) Astronauts” . But they don’t say that, they say “he went to the astronauts”. However, this is not a nominative case for three reasons: 1) there is a preposition before “cosmonauts”, which does not exist in the nominative case; 2) the word "cosmonauts" is not a subject, so this case should be indirect; 3) the word "astronauts" in this context does not answer the questions of the nominative case (who? what?) - you can’t say “who did he go to?”, Only “who did he go to?”. Therefore, we have a transformative case that answers the questions of the accusative, but the form of which coincides with the form of the nominative in the plural.

counting case occurs when using some nouns with numerals. For example, we say “during (whom? What?) Hours”, but “three (whom? What?) Hours, that is, we use not the genitive, but a special, countable case. As another example, the noun "step" is called - supposedly, "two steps". But I think I would say “two steps”, so it is not clear how correct this example is. independent group examples are nouns formed from adjectives. In the counting case, they answer the questions of the adjectives from which they originated, and in the plural. For example, “there is no (whom? what?) workshop”, but “two (what?) workshops”. Note that the use of the plural here is not justified by the fact that there are two workshops, because when we have two chairs we say “two chairs”, not “two chairs”; we use the plural only starting with five.

Total. Of all these tricky cases only local and transformative seem to me full-fledged. Waiting also makes some sense, since I don’t like waiting for the “weather” by the sea. Quantitative-separative and deprivative are too slippery and can often be replaced by a genitive, so they can be considered simply options that are preferred in certain cases. I am not ready to consider the vocative as a case at all, because, as I said, it does not seem to me that "uncle" is a noun. Well, and countable - the devil knows. The effect with nouns formed from adjectives can be considered just a glitch of the language, and there seems to be only one example with the hour.

From the school bench, we clearly know that there are 6 cases in Russian. But it turns out that this is not entirely true, there are much more cases in grammar. Many of them have been preserved in a residual state, having come into the Russian language from Old Slavonic and Old Russian. One of these phenomena is the vocative case in Russian.

Vocative case: acquaintance

In order to designate an appeal to a person, object or object, the vocative case is used in Russian. The examples are quite varied:

• Masha, go look at the cat!
• Vit, bring firewood!
• Van, call your dad soon!
• Lord, help me in this difficult situation!
• Oh God, give me strength!

The examples showed that the object in the vocative case is expressed by a noun, is its short form.

From the history of the case

AT Indo-European- the ancestor of our modern - this case was equal in rights with other cases. However, when Indo-European split into many language families, Sv. n. in most cases began to coincide with the nominative and ceased to be independent case. However, in the grammars of 1918 this case was still mentioned.

Now it is He who is used to address a person. n., but the vocative case is partially preserved in Russian. Examples are:

• Marin, please bring a book from the library.

Compare: the use of Im. n. instead of Sound. n. will in no way affect the meaning of the sentence: Marina, please bring a book from the library.

• Look around, old man, everything is destroyed and put on fire.

Here the vocative form "starche" is used to give the statement an elevated sound, this is the so-called high syllable. If we replace the form with Im. etc., then the meaning will not change, but the phrase will sound different.

• Lord, help me walk this path.

Such a word form is used in religious texts and prayers, heard by native speakers, and is not perceived as something unusual.

Features of the case form

Let's single out a few key features inherent in this case form:

• Coincides in form with Him. P.
• Used for the sole purpose of appeal.
• Its function resembles an interjection.
• It is perceived by a native speaker not as a noun, but as an exclamation.

The vocative case could be formed different ways, the main ones are presented in the table.

When forming a new vocative case, endings in such words can be reduced:

• Names, including a diminutive version (Van, Vanyush).
• Terms related to the family (mom, aunt, dad, grandfather).
• Some words form a vocative form even in the plural (guys, girls).

The ways of forming vocative forms cannot be called diverse, but in oral speech they are used frequently.

Vocative forms

In the table, we present the main forms characteristic of words in the vocative case.

In addition to truncating the endings of proper names, it is also possible to use short forms names of relatives. The vocative case is also formed in Russian. Examples are given below:

• Mom, where is the tablecloth?
• Dad, help solve the problem!
• Aunt, when are you coming?

The form of the vocative case is also preserved in the words "grandfather", "daughter":

• Daughter, come visit soon!
• Grandpa, come here quickly, help!

Such sentences have a pronounced colloquial connotation.

The vocative case in Russian: an example and interesting facts

• The second name Sound. p - vocative.
• There is an old vocative (used as an equivalent case in ancient form language) and a new vocative case (formed in oral speech by native speakers by truncating the endings of nouns).
• Initially, it was in many languages: Sanskrit, Latin and ancient Greek, but in modern languages did not pass.
• It has been preserved in some languages: in Romanian, Greek, Ukrainian, Serbian, Polish and others.
• The vocative form disappeared from the Russian language quite early, in the 14th-15th centuries, remaining only as a respectful appeal to boyars and princes.

Only masculine and feminine singular nouns could form the vocative case in Russian. Examples: Friends! God! Prince!

Often vocative forms are used in stable phraseological turns: Lord God Jesus Christ (all four words in vowels), our lord.

In the literature of the 19th-20th centuries, the vocative case was also used for archaization. The examples are now quite diverse:

• In Pushkin's text "What do you need, old man" the form is used to create the effect of archaism.
• "Turn around, son." This form helps to recreate the peculiarities of the speech of the Ukrainian Cossacks.

The vocative case in Russian: the rule

Words in the vocative case in a sentence play the role of an address, so they are separated by commas in writing.

Here's an example:

• Marus, come to the performance today.
• Mom, help me wash the dishes!
• Vanyush, where is the new book?

From the above examples, it can be seen that this rule applies to any sentence - declarative, imperative or interrogative.

Often, to give the text an ironic coloring, the vocative case in Russian is used. Example: Man! When will you take up your mind and work properly!

The vocative case in Russian, examples of which were given above, is an amazing grammatical phenomenon, indicating that our language changes over time. If many centuries ago this form was commonly used in oral speech, now it is often used only in religious texts or to give a sentence an elevated color.

(Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Serbian, etc.) and some Celtic languages ​​(Scottish and Irish), Baltic languages ​​(for example: Latvian and Lithuanian). Of the Romanesque, the vocative form has been preserved only in the Romanian language. It is also present in some non-Indo-European languages ​​such as Arabic, Georgian, Korean, and Chuvash.

Encyclopedic YouTube

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Polish from A TO Ż - Vocative case (Lesson 14)

GREEK LANGUAGE. vocative

Vocative case. Contacting Polish

vocative

GREEK LANGUAGE. NOMINATIVE

Subtitles

In the Indo-European language

The vocative case in the Indo-European proto-language had only words of the singular (although in Sanskrit the vocative case also exists for the plural), masculine and feminine. Neuter gender, as a descendant of an inanimate family, could not have a vocative case. From the very beginning of Indo-European studies, it was noted that the Proto-Indo-European forms of the vocative case in most cases have a zero ending and represent a pure stem. The stems in *o and *a also have a special alternation of the last vowel of the stem: (Greek νύμφη - νύμφα!; Λύχο-ς - λύχε!). At the same time, the ending of the vocative case characteristic of the bases on *o - e, became the most characteristic and widespread: it alone survived from the forms of the vocative case in Latin (lupus - lupe!), And it is also the most common, well-known and partially preserved in the language memory form in Russian (wolf!). Declension into a consonant did not have a special vocative form. But it is assumed that the Indo-European vocative case was also distinguished by a special accentuation (the emphasis was transferred to the first syllable: oh, mother! = Skt. mâtar, Greek. μήτερ).

By latest research, the vocative case in Indo-European is reconstructed as follows:

Thematic nouns (stem on - *o -)

On the example of the word "wolf"

Base on - *a -

On the example of the words "horse" (for Sanskrit), "hand" (for Old Church Slavonic and Lithuanian)

Base on - *u -

On the example of the word "son" (for the Greek πῆχυς "forearm")

Base on - *i -

On the example of the words "sheep" (for Sanskrit, ancient Greek and Lithuanian) and "guest" (for Old Church Slavonic and Gothic)

Proto-Slavic, Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian languages

In the Proto-Slavic language, the vocative case had nouns of the first four declensions; declensions in i.-e. occlusive (mother, lamb) and i.e. short u (kams, rhemes) did not have a vocative form. In declensions in i.u. long - *u - and in i.-e. - *i - the vocative form retained the form of the Indo-European stem (son! guests!), in the declension to - * o - the ancient ending -e was preserved (husband! elder!). In general, in Proto-Slavic, and after it Old Russian and Old Slavonic, the vocative case was formed as follows:

• Ancient stem in *-ā-:

O after a hard consonant, -e after a soft one: woman! sister! soul! de vice!

• Ancient base on *-o-:

E after a hard consonant, th after a soft one: old! father! horse! Igor!

• Ancient stem on *-u-:

W: honey! son!

• Ancient stem on *-i-:

I: night! lights! God!

In the process of inflection, there was an alternation of consonants according to the first palatalization: k - h (human - human), g - f (god - god, friend - friend), x - w (vlah - vlash).

Modern Russian

The vocative case begins to die out quite early: already in the Ostromir Gospel (XI century) its confusion with the nominative is recorded. as show birch bark letters, in the XIV-XV centuries. it was preserved solely as a form of respectful address to persons of a higher social rank: mister! mistress! prince! brother! father! To mid-sixteenth in. he finally disappeared from living speech, remaining only in the forms of addressing the clergy ( father! lord!) . Until 1918, the vocative case was formally listed in grammars as the seventh case of the Russian language. In our time, the loss of the idea of ​​the vocative case leads to the fact that in live speech the archaic forms of the vocative case are often used as nominative: “Father told me yesterday”; "Vladyka Dosifey preached a sermon". This causes indignation among the zealots of the purity of the language, who call for the complete abandonment of vocative forms.

Proponents of the "classic" version Belarusian language(tarashkevytsy), on the contrary, usually emphasize the vocative case as distinguishing feature Belarusian language from Russian.

Examples: Brother - brother, son - son, Ivan - Ivan.

Polish language

In Polish, the vocative case (usually referred to as the "vocative form", wolacz) is preserved for all masculine and feminine singular nouns. However, in real modern language usage, especially in oral speech, it dies off and is often used only in frozen phraseological units. At the same time, in official business correspondence it is preserved as a sign of respect for a partner, which is a direct analogy with the limited use of the vocative in the Russian language of the 14th-15th centuries.

first declension ( masculine, in nominative case end in a consonant), according to the solid version it ends in - "e, with softening and / or alternation of the final consonant of the stem: chlop - clopie!, people - people!, author - autorze!(Exceptions: dom - domu!, syn - synu!, dziad - dziadu!, i.e. mostly words former declension with i.-e. basis for a long u). A similar ending is observed in words with a stem on -ec, For example chlopiec - chlopcze!. If the final sound of the base is soft, back-lingual ( -k, -g, -ch) or hardened ( -rz, -cz etc.) - ending -u: koń - koniu!, robotnik - robotniku!, patalach - patalachu!, piekarz - piekarzu!(Exception: God - Boze!).

The second declension consists of neuter nouns and therefore does not have a special vocative form. Third declension (masculine in -a, -o, feminine on the -a, -i) usually -o: zona - Zono!, poeta - poeto!; affectionate forms - -u, eg. babcia - babciu!, Kasia - Kasiu!; forms with an ending -i do not have a special form, for example. pani!, gospododyni!.

The fourth declension (feminine, in the nominative case ends in a consonant) ends in -i: Crew - krwi!.

Bulgarian language

Genus	The ending	vocative
M.r.	-to, -X, -w, -well, -h, -c, -in	-o yunako, mzho, bulgarino
	-n, -l, -t, -R	-Yu horse, teacher, zet, king
	other consonants	-e people, brother, Vasile, Dimitra, father
	-oh, -a, -I, -about, -and(Good, Dobri, bascha, sidiya, chicho, uncle)	-
Zh.r.	-a, -I	-o babo, goro, soul, earth
	-a(personal names)	-e Bonnet, Werke, mom, asterisk
	consonant (span, joy, esen)	-ø
Wed	-o, -e	-

Other Slavic languages

As in modern Russian, the vocative case is not used in Slovenian and Slovak, with the exception of a number of stable and partially obsolete phraseological units.

Latvian

In Latvian, the vocative case is important to memorize for the I, II, III and IV declensions.