vocative
- adjective
- /ˈvɑːkətɪv/
- Specialized
:
vocativo
- The phrase 'O friend' exemplifies the use of a vocative term to call someone's attention in speech.
- vocative case
Examples
-
When writing a letter, it's important to use the vocative form to show who you are directly addressing.
-
A woman never addresses her husband directly, using the vocative case, nor will a man address his wife in that manner...
Academic text (1991) -
I find that the point where the poem tips over into this more vocative mode is well localized.
Academic text (2011) -
And the choice of the vocative mood captures the cognitive feel of the emotional effect of the poem that is generated by other means in the original language.
Academic text (2006) -
Crane was a vocative poet, a poet of the sublime address "O!" who found his vocation, his calling, in the act of calling others to share in his vision of poetry.
Academic text (1997) -
Despite one's conscious knowledge that the address is to another when listening to the utterance of an apostrophe, merely hearing vocative forms may cause one to respond oneself.
Academic text (1994) -
And if you have a good repertoire of songs to draw from, you'll find it easier to remember such things as the genders of nouns or how to form the genitive and vocative cases.
Blog text (15) -
With the vocative reading of the last line, grammatical readings i and iii are identical except for the reading of the verb wrecks as transitive (i) or intransitive (iii).
Academic text (2006) -
However, though marked by vocative forms, apostrophe is not dialogue, for even if the addressee is part of the orator's audience and thus can "hear" the apostrophe, conventionally the addressee does not reply.
Academic text (1994) -
In Latin, 'Marcus' becomes 'Marce' in the vocative case when addressing Marcus directly.
Compounds
Surface Forms
Morphology
vocative = voc + ive
Same formation as the noun: the suffix '-ive' signals an adjectival/relational meaning, but the combining form 'voc-' is Latin-derived and not a standalone English word, so the relation to 'addressing/calling' is not fully obvious to learners without etymological knowledge.
Etymology
The adjective vocative comes from the Latin root vocare 'to call'. It describes a word form used when you 'call' or address someone directly, echoing the meaning in vocation ('a calling') and vocal ('voice').
