Cases

From UniLang Wiki

Cases are inflection patterns used to describe the role of a substantive (noun, pronoun, noun phrase) in a sentence. The case structure differs from language to language. Modern English has the nominative case, and the accusative and genitive somewhat degenerated: accusative in the form of prepositions, genitive as an independent particle - the ending -'s denoting possession/ownership.

Definitions

List is not comprehensive!

Case	Description	Comments
Nominative	Generally marks the subject of a clause	This is the "base form". In grammar, all case inflection patterns are usually given relative to the nominative case.
Accusative	Marks the (direct) object of a clause. Can mark the object of (some) prepositions. Can signify movement/transition
Dative	Marks the indirect object of a clause. Can mark the object of some prepositions. Can signify a static condition (as opposed to transition). Can signify possession (as opposed to ownership. Possessive case). Can signify the capacity of / usage as a tool (instrumental case)
Genitive	Signifies ownership. The substantive that owns is inflected to genitive	This can be thought of as adjectival use, defining a property (sic!)
Locative	marks the time or place or object on/at which an action ends.
Ablative	Signifies the place/time/object an action starts from. Can signify the capacity of / usage as a tool (instrumental case)
Elative	*Signifies the place/time something comes out of, is extracted or deduced from.
Instrumental	Signifies the capacity of / usage as a tool
Possessive	Signifies possession, not ownership. Typically used When possessing something someone else owns for "inalienable" property, like body parts, name, etc.

Please note: The above descriptions are general, and some languages have wider/narrower definitions for each case in use. As an example, the definition of the ablative case is correct for Finnish, but Hungarian has 3 "from" cases and the ablative means "from somewhere around/nearby ...".