This document provides an overview of the three grammatical cases in English: subjective, objective, and possessive. It defines each case and provides examples of how nouns and pronouns are inflected to show case. It also discusses some exceptions and irregular forms in the possessive case.

1. ELT
Session on Case
By
Dr. Nicholas Correa
Director, New Horizon Scholars School

2. Case
Case is the grammatical function of a noun or
pronoun.
There are only three cases in modern English, they
are subjective (he), objective (him) and possessive
(his).
They may seem more familiar in their old English
form - nominative, accusative and genitive.
There is no dative case in modern English. Yippee!

3. The good news is that we, we got rid of most of our
cases.
As a result English is easier than many other
languages because nouns and some indefinite
pronouns (anyone, someone, everyone, and so on)
only have a distinctive case form for the possessive.
There are a few remnants of old English though, and
pronouns have distinctive forms in all three cases and
should be used with a bit more care.

4. There are three pronoun cases:
1. Subjective case: pronouns used as subject.
2. Objective case: pronouns used as objects of
verbs or prepositions.
3. Possessive case: pronouns which express
ownership.

5. Personal Pronoun
Subjective/Nominative Objective/Accusative Possessive/Genitive
Referring to the subject Referring to the object in The apostrophe form of
in a sentence a sentence the word ("Lynne's).
I Me Mine
You You Yours
He Him His
She Her Hers
It It Its
We Us Ours
They Them Theirs
Who Whom Whose

6. The above pronouns, and who and its compounds, are the
only words that are inflected in all three cases -
1. subjective,
2. objective,
3. possessive
The subjective and objective cases are indistinguishable, and
are called the common case in nouns .
One result of this simplicity is that, the sense of case being
almost lost, the few mistakes that can be made are made
often, even by native speakers, some of them so often that
they are now almost right by prescription.

7. Subjective / Nominative Case
Used especially to identify the subject of a finite verb.
A noun or pronoun is in the subjective when it is used as
the subject of the sentence or as a predicate noun.
In the following examples, nouns and pronouns in the
subjective case are italicized.
A noun in the subjective case is often the subject of a verb.
For example:
•"The tree fell on my car", "the tree" is in the nominative
case because it's the subject of the verb "fell“.

8. Pronouns are inflected to show the subjective case.
Personal Pronoun
Subjective/Nominative
Referring to the subject in a sentence.
I
You
He
She
It
We
They
Who

9. For example:
•Lynne owns this web site.
•I hope to finish my homework tomorrow.
•She enjoyed her English lessons.
•He is an idiot.
(The word idiot is a predicate noun because it follows
is; a form of the verb "be")

10. Objective / Accusative Case
A noun or pronoun is in the objective case when it is used as a
direct object, an indirect object, or an object.
A noun which is directly affected by the action of a verb is put
into the objective case.
In English we call this noun the "direct object" which is a little
more descriptive of its function. It's the direct object of some
action.
•Robert fixed the car.
In the example above, the "car" is in the objective case
because it's the direct object of Robert's action of fixing.

11. Pronouns are inflected to show the objective case.
Personal Pronoun
Objective/Accusative
Referring to the object in a sentence
Me
You
Him
Her
It
Us
Them
Whom

12. For example:
•The web site gave Lynne a headache.
•Mum gave us the money.
•She gave him the book.

13. Possessive Case
The possessive case is used to show ownership.
(Lynne's website.)
The good news is that the genetive case is used less
and less in English today. Hooray!
You may still hear someone say something like "The
mother of the bride," but it could equally be; "The
bride's mother."
However, the possessive pattern ('s) is generally used
when indicate a relation of ownership or association
with a person, rather than a thing.
For example:-
Lynne's web site kept growing larger and larger.

14. There are, as ever, exceptions to this rule. When
a group of people is involved or animals.
For example:-
The members' forum.
The dogs' tails.
Singular and irregular plural nouns that don't
end in 's' take -'s.
For example:-
Lynne's web site.
The people's court

15. Plural nouns that end in " s " take an apostrophe at
the end
( ' ).
For example:-
The girls' dresses.
People's names that end in "s" you can write (') or
('s).
For example:-
Charles' job was on the line.
Or
Charles's job was on the line.

16. Try to avoid sounding like hissing Sid
though. When an added - s would lead to
three closely bunched s or z sounds just
use an apostrophe at the end.
The map of Ulysses' journey.
If you have to show joint ownership, give
the possessive form to the final name
only.
Abbott and Costello's famous baseball
sketch.

17. Pronouns and determiners are inflected to show
the possessive case.
Personal Pronoun/Determiner
Possessive
Lynne's Lynne's
My Mine
Your Yours
His His
Her Hers
Its Its
Our Ours
Their Theirs
Whose Whose

18. For example:-
This is Lynne's web site. It's my
website!. It's mine!
It's not Zozanga's web site. It's not
his website. It's not his.
Have you seen her book? It's her
book. It's hers.

19. Genitive Case
You should still use the genetive case
when talking about things that belong to
other things.
For example:-
The door of the car.
The content of the website.
The top of the page.
!Tip - If you aren't sure what to use stick
to (of the).