In the aftermath of some unproductive discussions resulting from my contention on another board that the concept of case is moribund in English I have done some thinking about the matter. For starters, case can be defined as the relationship between a noun and other words in a sentence or as the markers on the nouns that indicate those relationships. As an example of the latter we have the Latin 2nd declension masculine nouns in which the cases and their endings can be summarized as follows:

Code:

  case               sing   plural

 nominative          -us      -i
 genitive            -i       -orum
 dative              -o       -is
 accusative          -um      -os 
 ablative            -o       -is


If we interpret this in the context of the first definition things aren't quite so easy. E.g., the Latin ablative can be used to indicate separation, agency, means, cause, etc. These could all be considered different cases. As another example some languages are what is known as ergative languages, i.e., in the simplest form, e.g., Basque there is one case for the subject of a sentence with a transitive verb and another for the subject of a sentence with an intransitive verb. When you stop and think about it, it makes sense. The relationship between the I in "I grew two inches in May of 1956" and the I in "I grew corn last year" and the other concepts in their respective sentences is quite different. Then you toss in another language that has a case called ergative, Georgian, you get a whole nother bucket of fish. I particularly like this comment on the nominative case from that site:

Quote:

Nominative

This case is used for the subjects of intransitive verbs in all screeves, for the subjects of transitive verbs in the present series, for the direct objects of transitive verbs in the other series, and for the direct objects of indirect verbs. It is also the case in which nouns are cited.



which gets me to my real question:

What does "screeve" mean in this context??