Category: Case

Grammatical case pertains to nouns and pronouns. A noun’s or a pronoun’s case shows its relationship with the other words in a sentence. A noun does not change its form in any of the cases other than the possessive case. A pronoun, however, changes its form in the possessive and the objective case.
The main cases you will encounter in English are:

	Case	Example
1	Subjective /Nominative  (subject of a verb)	Rila went to the shop. Bill is a policeman. She went to the shop. It is he.
2	Possessive/ Genitive  (show possession)	This is Rima’s bag.This is her bag.
3	Objective /Dative / Accusative  (direct/indirect object of a verb/ preposition)	I visited Riva. Rahim reads a book. I visited her. The horse kicked me. Take me to her.
4	Vocative Case (is addressed directly)	Rina, is this your pen? Brother, could I take your pen?  Good bye, mother. You, get off my lawn. Go there, Rahim. May I come in sir.

Nominative and Objective case can be used as pronoun, adjective, infinitive, gerund, verbal noun, phrase, clause etcExample

	Nominative	Objective
noun	Orin goes to school.	He reads the Quran.
pronoun	He visited Khulna.	We called him.
adjective	The poor live in hand to mouth.	He helps the poor.
infinitive	To err is human.	I want to sleep.
gerund	Walking is a good exercise.
verbal noun	The reading of newspaper is a good habit.	I like the playing of cricket.
phrase	A man of letters came here.	I met a man of parts.
clause	What he says is known to all.	I know how he did it.

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The case at a glance

Nouns	Person	Subjective	Possessive	Objective
Singular	3rd	frog	frog’s	frog
		Minu	Minu’s	Minu
Plural		frogs	frogs’	frogs
		witches	witches’	witches

Personal Pronouns	Person	Subjective	Possessive	Objective
Number	1st	I	my, mine	me
Singular	2nd	you	your, yours	you
	3rd	he /she/it	his/her/hers/its/ our/ours	him/her/it
Plural	1st	we	your, yours	us
	2nd	you	their, theirs	you
	3rd	they		them

Other Pronouns	Person	Subjective	Possessive	Objective
Relative/ interrogative pronouns	3rd	Who	Whose	Whom
		Which	of which	Which
		That /what		That/ what
Indefinite pronouns		everybody	everybody’s	everybody

Formation of Possessive case:

Process		Examples
by adding (’s)  If the word ends without “s”	singular	Shawkot’s book, kamal’s pen, mother’s glass, baby’s toy. The boy’s father, The girl’s mother
	plural	women’s co-operative, children’s park, men’s dress, people’s republic.
by adding (’s)   If the word ends in “s”	singular	jesus’ speech, brutass’ car, keates’ poem. For goodness’ sake, Moses’s laws
	plural	boys’ school, girls’ school, sailors’ cap, brothers’ garden.
by adding (’s)	Compound noun	brother-in-law’s home, Inspector-general’s office, Rahim and Karim’s flat, Sami and Rahi’s mother.
by adding (’s) or		Rahim’s hen or The hen of Rahim. Rabbi’s goat or the goat of rabbi.
using of  before subject	material noun	The legs of chair are broken.
by adding (’s)	denoting time, space or weight.	Three days’ leave, A yard’s length, A ton’s wait. In a year’s time, A week’s holiday, Five minutes’ walk, A pound’s weight
	Some common phrases	At his fingers’ ends, For mercy’s sake, To his heart’s content, A boat’s crew, At his wit’s end,  a day’s work, a month’s pay, today’s newspaper, in a year’s time

Possessive case:

অধিকার সম্বন্ধ বা কর্তৃত্ব সম্বন্ধ বোঝায়। এটি “কার” এই প্রশ্নের উত্তর দেয়।

– This is Ram’s book. (কার বই– Ram এর)
– These are Shakespeare’s plays.(কার নাটক – Shakespeare’s এর)

1. শেষে ‘s’ বিহীন singular/plural noun এর সাধারণত Apostrophe S (’s) যোগ করে Possessive করা হয়। যেমন– Shawkot’s book, kamal’s pen, mother’s glass, baby’s toy. The boy’s father, The girl’s mother,  women’s co-operative, children’s park, men’s dress, people’s republic.
2. শেষে ‘s’ যুক্ত singular/plural noun এর শেষে শুধু Apostrophe যোগ করে Possessive করা হয়। যেমন– jesus’ speech, brutass’ car, keats’ poem. For goodness’ sake, Moses’s laws boys’ school, girls’ school, sailors’ cap, brothers’ garden.
3. Compound noun এর শেষে Apostrophe ও S (’s) যোগ করে Possessive করা হয়। যেমন– brother-in-law’s home, Inspector-general’s office, Rahim and Karim’s flat, Sami and Rahi’s mother.
4. And দ্বারা যুক্ত একাধিক noun যৌথ অধিকার প্রকাশ করলে শেষের noun টির সাথে (’s) যোগ করতে হয়। যেমন– Rahim and Karim’s flat, Sami and Rahi’s mother.
5. সাধারণত ব্যক্তির ক্ষেত্রে (’s) বসিয়ে বা তার পূর্বে of বসিয়ে Possessive করা হয়। যেমন–
6. অচেতন পদার্থের ক্ষেত্রে (’s) না বসিয়ে of বসিয়ে Possessive করতে হয়। যেমন–
   Incorrect – The Chair’s legs are broken.
   Correct – The legs of chair are broken.
7. সময়, দুরুত্ব ও ওজন প্রকাশক noun এর সাথে (s’) যোগ করে Possessive করতে হয়। যেমন – Three days’ leave, A yard’s length, A ton’s wait.