Grammatical Cases in Arabic

Definitions

Grammatical Cases in Arabic

Arabic has three grammatical cases:

Names of Arabic/Semitic Grammatical Cases
Western Name	Arabic Name
Nominative	'ar-raf"(u)	الرَّفْعُ
	= the raising
Accusative	'an-nasb(u)	النَّصْبُ
	= the erecting
Genitive	'al-jarr(u)	الْجَرُّ
	= the dragging

The same three cases also existed in Akkadian, the oldest attested Semitic language, and which was spoken in Mesopotamia/Iraq from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BCE.

Those three cases have more utilizations than what the western names indicate, here are the different uses that I could gather for each of the Arabic cases:

Equivalent Cases	Arabic/Semitic Case
Nominative	الرَّفْعُ 'ar-raf"(u)
Accusative Dative Essive Locative Temporal Partitive Cognate Accusative Final Comitative Perlative Vocative	النَّصْبُ 'an-nasb(u)
Genitive Ablative	الْجَرُّ 'al-jarr(u)

Now to what each case means:

►Nominative: the case of a noun or pronoun that is functioning as the subject of a clause or sentence. Other words such as adjectives may have a nominative case in agreement with a noun.

e.g. the man went to his work.

►Accusative (Arabic الْمَفْعُوْلُ بِهِ ): the case that identifies the direct object of a verb, or certain other grammatical parts.

e.g. the man bought a car.

►Dative (Arabic الْمَفْعُوْلُ بِهِ الثَّاْنِيْ ): the case that indicates the indirect object of a verb.

e.g. the man gave his daughter a pen.

►Essive (Arabic الْحَاْلُ ): a case that expresses the temporary state of the referent specified by a noun. It means "while," or "in the capacity of."

e.g. the man walked while laughing.

►Locative (Arabic الْمَفْعُوْلُ فِيْهِ ، ظَرْفُ الْمَكَاْنِ ): a case that indicates a location. It corresponds to the English prepositions "in," "on," "at," and "by." In Arabic, it is only used with place expressions, such as "front" or "back."

e.g. the man stood in front of the door.

►Temporal (Arabic الْمَفْعُوْلُ فِيْهِ ، ظَرْفُ الزَّمَاْنِ ): a case that indicates a time. It corresponds to the English prepositions "in," "on," "at," and "by." In Arabic, it is only used with time expressions, such as "morning" or "evening."

e.g. the man works in the morning.

►Partitive (Arabic التَّمْيِيْزُ ): a case that indicates "partialness," "without result," or "without specific identity."

e.g. thirteen men came.

►Cognate Accusative (Arabic  الْمَفْعُوْلُ الْمُطْلَقُ): a case that identifies the object of an intransitive verb; with the object having the same root as the verb.

e.g. the man slept a troubled sleep.

►Final (Arabic الْمَفْعُوْلُ لأَِجْلِهِ ): a case that indicates a final cause of an action.

e.g. the man prays because of hope of salvation.

►Comitative (Arabic الْمَفْعُوْلُ مَعَهُ ): a case that indicates companionship. It corresponds to the English preposition "with."

e.g. the man went with his friend.

►Perlative (Arabic الْمَفْعُوْلُ مَعَهُ ): in Arabic, it indicates a movement along the referent of the noun that is marked.

e.g. the man walked along the beach.

►Vocative (Arabic الْمُنَاْدَىْ ): a case that indicates that somebody or something is being directly addressed by the speaker. In Julius Caesar’s dying words “et tu, Brute,” “Brute” is the vocative form of the name “Brutus.”

e.g. Mary, are you O.K.?

►Ablative: the case that indicates the source, agent, or instrument of action of the verb. It indicates the object of most common prepositions.

e.g. the man came late from his work.

►Genitive (Arabic الْمُضَاْفُ إِلَيْهِ ): a case that indicates possession.

e.g. a man's friend must be there for him.

Moods of Verbs in Arabic

►Indicative: the mood used for factual statements and positive beliefs.

e.g. the man goes to his work.

►Subjunctive: a mood used for hypothetical or unlikely events, expressing opinions, or making suggestions.

e.g. if I were him, I wouldn't go there.

►Jussive: a mood that expresses plea, insistence, desire, intent, command, purpose or consequence.

►Energetic: a mood that expresses something which the speaker wishes to emphasize.

►Imperative: the mood that expresses a direct command or a request.

e.g. come here!