Talk:Oblique case

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I find it very odd (actually, wrong and contradictory) that the absolutive case of ergative languages is referred here as a kind of oblique case. An oblique case is supposed to be a marked/secondary case, as opposed to the unmarked/primary/citation/direct case which corresponds to the "plain" form of a word. In accusative languages like English, the primary case is the nominative and the secondary/marked/oblique case is the accusative (a word in the nominative is said to be in its "plain" or unmarked form and this is the form used to cite the word; e.g. "I" and "who" are the plain forms while "me" and "whom" are the oblique forms); if there are other cases apart from those two, like the dative in Latin and German, these are also oblique cases. But in ergative languages (such as Basque), the primary/unmarked case is the absolutive, while the ergative is secondary and marked (e.g. in Basque the "plain", primary form of the first person singular pronoun is "ni", in the absolutive, while the ergative form "nik" is a clearly marked, secondary case just like other oblique cases such as the dative "niri" and the genitive "nire"). Uaxuctum 12:17, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't think it really says that; it's trying to contrast nominative/oblique with absolutive/ergative. It perhaps can be clearer. -- Smerdis of Tlön 14:55, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Style

Yeah, so this article is really hard to read for someone who has a rudimentary understanding of linguistics.

In linguistics (or generally in the linguistic sciences), an oblique case (Lat. casus generalis) is a noun case of analytic languages that is used generally when a noun is the predicate of a sentence or a preposition. An oblique case can appear in any case relationship except the nominative case of a sentence subject or the vocative case of direct address.
Too many parentheticals in the first sentence makes it really hard to follow. Can appear in any case relationship? What does that mean?
Languages with a nominative/oblique case system also contrast with those who have an absolutive/ergative case system. In ergative-absolutive languages, the absolutive case is used for a direct object (the subject will then be in the ergative case); but the absolutive case is also used for the subject of an intransitive verb, where the subject is being passively described, rather than performing an action.
I have very little idea what I'm being told in this paragraph.
Bulgarian, the only analytic Slavic language, also has an oblique case - or, rather, two of them at pronouns (cf. English "Give me that ball" and "Give that ball to me") and one (syntactically and grammatically speaking) at nouns.
Also has an oblique case? There weren't any listed before it. And the sentence goes on to be packed pull of parentheticals. Syntactically and grammatically speaking? Is that even necessary? And wouldn't syntactically imply grammatically? And is this paragraph even relevant? NickelShoe 19:46, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
Um...please? NickelShoe 19:36, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Misc

As I understand it, Bulgarian is not the only analytical slavic languages, the closely related Macedonian language being the other one (and don't get political about this, al you Bulgarians! :)) JAL, 2006-07-24

[edit] Merge with Object (grammar)?

Should this article be merged with Object (grammar)? FilipeS 01:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bulgarian

I don't really understand why the Bulgarian example is an oblique case, since there seems to be a distinction between dative and accusative. I think the object forms of pronouns in English and Dutch would be better examples. Ucucha 16:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)