The Cases
Old English Grammar 1
Chapter 3 · The Cases
🎯 The Cases
In Modern English you know who did what to whom from word order: "the knight slew the dragon". In Old English the job is done partly by the ending on the noun and on the word for "the". This chapter names the cases, shows what each is for using the example sentences from Wikipedia's Old English grammar article, and gives the full noun tables for the classes met in Chapter 2.
What each case does
| Case | Job (per the article) | Example from the article |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | The subject, "which carries out the action"; also the word after "to be" | Hē lufode hīe "he loved her" · þæt mæġden rann "the girl ran" · wyrd is eall "destiny is all" |
| Accusative | The direct object, "that which is acted upon" | sē ridda ācwealde þone dracan "the knight slew the dragon" |
| Genitive | The possessor; also a partitive use ("a group of") | Ġesāwe þū þæs hundes bān? "Have you seen the dog's bone?" · manna hēap "a group of people" · wætres cuppe "a cup of water" |
| Dative | The indirect object | Iċ sealde hire þone beall "I gave her the ball" |
| Instrumental | Something being used | Hwæl mē meahte mid āne sleġe besenċan oþþe ofslēan "A whale could sink or kill me with one blow" · ōðre naman "by another name" |
Reading a sentence by its cases
Take the article's sentence Iċ sealde hire þone beall, "I gave her the ball". Without trying to translate every word, the cases tell you the roles:
- Iċ "I" is the subject: nominative.
- hire "her" is the indirect object: dative.
- þone beall "the ball" is the direct object: accusative.
That "the" before beall has an accusative form (þone), which is how you know the ball is what was given. The article says extraposition and scrambling are common in Old English; the cases are what keep the roles clear when words move. (The forms of the word for "the" are the subject of Chapter 5.)
The full a-stem tables
These are the article's models. Notice that the nominative and accusative are the same:
| Case | Masculine hund "dog" (sg / pl) | Neuter light sċip "boat" (sg / pl) | Neuter heavy hūs "house" (sg / pl) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative / accusative | hund / hundas | sċip / sċipu | hūs / hūs |
| Genitive | hundes / hunda | sċipes / sċipa | hūses / hūsa |
| Dative | hunde / hundum | sċipe / sċipum | hūse / hūsum |
Patterns visible in the table (my observations from the article's forms, not statements in it):
- Nominative and accusative are identical in every cell. The article lists them as one row, "Nom–Acc".
- Genitive singular is -es and genitive plural is -a in all three nouns.
- Dative singular is -e and dative plural is -um in all three.
The n-stem (weak) tables
| Case | Masculine mōna "moon" (sg / pl) | Feminine sunne "sun" (sg / pl) | Neuter ēage "eye" (sg / pl) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | mōna / mōnan | sunne / sunnan | ēage / ēagan |
| Accusative | mōnan / mōnan | sunnan / sunnan | ēage / ēagan |
| Genitive | mōnena / mōnena | sunnena / sunnena | ēagan / ēagena |
| Dative | mōnum / mōnum | sunnum / sunnum | ēagum / (not listed) |
One cell is missing: the article's table does not list a dative plural for ēage, so none is given here. Observe that the masculine and feminine n-stems use the same genitive form in the singular and the plural.
The ō-stem (feminine) singular
| Case | Light ġiefu "gift" (sg) | Heavy rād "ride" (sg) |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | ġiefu | rād |
| Accusative | ġiefe | rāde |
The article's table also lists a genitive (ġiefa, rāda) and a dative (ġiefum, rādum) for these nouns, but in what I read the forms were not clearly labelled singular or plural, so I do not assign them to a column. Check them against the article before relying on them. The nominative plurals (ġiefa, rāda) are given in Chapter 2.
Prepositions and cases
The article says prepositions may govern the accusative, genitive, dative or instrumental. Its table gives the governed case for few of them: andlang "along" governs the genitive. For of "from, out of" it gives the meaning but not the case. So this chapter does not list prepositions with their cases; Chapter 10 returns to prepositions and should be checked against a fuller source.
📋 Quick Reference
| Case | Job | a-stem endings (masc.) |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | Subject | sg none · pl -as |
| Accusative | Direct object | same as the nominative |
| Genitive | Possessor; "a group of" | sg -es · pl -a |
| Dative | Indirect object | sg -e · pl -um |
| Instrumental | Thing used (mostly merged with the dative) | no separate column |
✏️ Try It Yourself
Say the answer first, then click to check.
1. In sē ridda ācwealde þone dracan ("the knight slew the dragon"), which noun phrase is in the accusative and how do you know?
Show answer
þone dracan "the dragon": it is the direct object, "that which is acted upon" (the article's definition of the accusative).
2. In Iċ sealde hire þone beall, which word is dative?
Show answer
hire "her", the indirect object (the person it was given to).
3. In Ġesāwe þū þæs hundes bān?, which phrase is genitive and what does it express?
Show answer
þæs hundes "the dog's": the possessor.
4. Give the dative plural and genitive singular of hund.
Show answer
Dative plural hundum; genitive singular hundes.
5. How can you tell the plural of hūs from its singular in the nominative?
Show answer
You cannot from the noun alone: both are hūs. The article says "heavy" neuters have no plural ending, so agreement words and context decide.
6. What is the difference between the genitive in þæs hundes bān and in wætres cuppe?
Show answer
The first is possessive ("the dog's bone"); the second is partitive ("a cup of water").
7. What happened to the instrumental case?
Show answer
It was falling out of use and had mostly merged with the dative. It was distinguished only in the masculine and neuter singular of strong adjectives and demonstratives, and even there the dative was often used instead.
8. The n-stem accusative singular of mōna is mōnan. What else in the table ends in -an and why does that make a form ambiguous?
Show answer
The nominative plural mōnan and the accusative plural are the same word, so mōnan alone could be accusative singular or nominative/accusative plural; the word for "the" and the verb help decide.
9. What does the article's table say about the case governed by the preposition andlang "along"?
Show answer
It governs the genitive.
10. Why does Old English not need a strict subject-verb-object word order to say who did what?
Show answer
The case endings (and the case forms of "the") mark the roles, so words can move; the article says scrambling and extraposition are common.