Accusative is a grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a sentence. It is found in many languages, including English, German, French, Latin, and many others. The accusative case is typically used to indicate the recipient of an action; for example, in the sentence “She gave him the book,” him is the direct object and is in the accusative case. In English, the accusative case is not marked by any special ending; it is simply the same as the plain form of the noun.
In other languages, however, the accusative case may be marked by a special ending, such as -m in Latin and -en in German. For example, in the German sentence “Er hat ihn gesehen” (“He saw him”), the pronoun ihn is in the accusative case, marked by the ending -en. Similarly, in the Latin sentence “Puer puellam amat” (“The boy loves the girl”), the pronoun puellam is in the accusative case, marked by the ending -am.
The accusative case is also used in many languages to indicate the place to which someone or something is going. For example, in the German sentence “Er geht zur Schule” (“He goes to school”), the word zur is in the accusative case and indicates the place to which the subject is going. This type of use of the accusative case is called the accusative of direction.
In some languages, the accusative case is also used to indicate the duration of time over which an action takes place. For example, in the Latin sentence “Lego librum duabus horis” (“I read the book for two hours”), the word duabus is in the accusative case and indicates the duration of time. This type of use of the accusative case is called the accusative of duration.
In summary, the accusative case is a grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a sentence. It is found in many languages, including English, German, French, and Latin. In some languages, the accusative case may be marked by a special ending, such as -m in Latin and -en in German. The accusative case is also used in some languages to indicate the place to which someone or something is going, as well as the duration of time over which an action takes place.
References
Carney, E. (2008). Latin for dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Huddleston, R., & Pullum, G. K. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Robins, R. H. (1993). A short history of linguistics (3rd ed.). London: Longman.