4 ms·

Can you explain how your first two examples mean the same thing?

schoen 7y ago
I assume "Janu" is the accusative form of "Jana", indicating that Jana is the recipient rather than the source of the love in each sentence.
- btilly 7y ago
  That assumption is correct. You see the same conjugation form in other Slavic languages, including Russian.
  - zvrba 7y ago
    Nouns/names/numbers have declensions. Verbs have conjugations.
    - schoen 7y ago
      I think the coverall term that btilly wanted was "inflections".
smcl 7y ago
Shameless plug, I wrote about this here: https://blog.mclemon.io/cases-are-hard-who-punched-who https://blog.mclemon.io/cases-are-hard-who-punched-who - I used a slightly more one-sided example (Petr punches Pavel) to start things off ... but I talked a bit more about other cases to explain how it all fits together and why they're important. Basically though, in the specific example in the GP comment we know who loves whom by the order of words in the sentence - "${subject} loves ${object}" which is different from "${object} loves ${subject}". We know this because the word order in English tells us this. But in Czech and Latin this isn't how it works - the word order doesn't have the same significance or meaning as it does in English [1]. You indicate who does what by making a little modification to the words. In this example it's one of the simpler cases - a simple verb with a subject and an object. The subject is the "nominative" case (like the dictionary/default form of a word) and the object should be in the "accusative" case. So it's actually something like "${object.nominative()} loves ${subject.accusative()}". And just to confuse you further - it's not just "who does what" - there are other cases that denote doing something with or to or in :-) I give some examples in the above link [1] = that's not to say word order doesn't have a role, it's just not the same role as in English
- hackyhacky 7y ago
  Regarding the linked blog page: It's a nice introduction to the idea of cases, but it's not entirely accurate: the usual dative/locative form of Pavel is Pavlovi. Pavlu would be used only when there's a surname present. Thus "o Pavlovi" but "o Pavlu Novákovi".
  - smcl 7y ago
    Oops, thanks! Fixed - these nuances still kinda escape me :-O
- zvrba 7y ago
  > ${object.nominative()} loves ${subject.accusative()} You mixed it up, it should be "${object.accusative()} loves ${subject.nominative()}". Or, I guess, how you define "object" and "subject" for "loves" :P But grammatically, for transitive verbs, "subject" is the doer of an action, "object" is the target of an action.
  - smcl 7y ago
    Damn I rewrote that comment about 2 times and must have mangled it in the process!

I assume "Janu" is the accusative form of "Jana", indicating that Jana is the recipient rather than the source of the love in each sentence.

btilly 7y ago
That assumption is correct. You see the same conjugation form in other Slavic languages, including Russian.
- zvrba 7y ago
  Nouns/names/numbers have declensions. Verbs have conjugations.
  - schoen 7y ago
    I think the coverall term that btilly wanted was "inflections".

smcl 7y ago

Shameless plug, I wrote about this here: https://blog.mclemon.io/cases-are-hard-who-punched-who https://blog.mclemon.io/cases-are-hard-who-punched-who - I used a slightly more one-sided example (Petr punches Pavel) to start things off ... but I talked a bit more about other cases to explain how it all fits together and why they're important. Basically though, in the specific example in the GP comment we know who loves whom by the order of words in the sentence - "${subject} loves ${object}" which is different from "${object} loves ${subject}". We know this because the word order in English tells us this. But in Czech and Latin this isn't how it works - the word order doesn't have the same significance or meaning as it does in English [1]. You indicate who does what by making a little modification to the words. In this example it's one of the simpler cases - a simple verb with a subject and an object. The subject is the "nominative" case (like the dictionary/default form of a word) and the object should be in the "accusative" case. So it's actually something like "${object.nominative()} loves ${subject.accusative()}". And just to confuse you further - it's not just "who does what" - there are other cases that denote doing something with or to or in :-) I give some examples in the above link [1] = that's not to say word order doesn't have a role, it's just not the same role as in English

hackyhacky 7y ago
Regarding the linked blog page: It's a nice introduction to the idea of cases, but it's not entirely accurate: the usual dative/locative form of Pavel is Pavlovi. Pavlu would be used only when there's a surname present. Thus "o Pavlovi" but "o Pavlu Novákovi".
- smcl 7y ago
  Oops, thanks! Fixed - these nuances still kinda escape me :-O
zvrba 7y ago
> ${object.nominative()} loves ${subject.accusative()} You mixed it up, it should be "${object.accusative()} loves ${subject.nominative()}". Or, I guess, how you define "object" and "subject" for "loves" :P But grammatically, for transitive verbs, "subject" is the doer of an action, "object" is the target of an action.
- smcl 7y ago
  Damn I rewrote that comment about 2 times and must have mangled it in the process!