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Glite Dictionary
locative case

locative case

9.9
A word form that shows where something is or happens
  • noun
  • /ˈloʊkətɪv keɪs/
  • Specialized
translation icon : caso locativo
  • The locative case is rare in modern Indo-European languages but remains in use in some Slavic languages.

Examples

  • What is a locative case?

  • When learning Latin, students are often surprised by the existence of the locative case.

  • Russian uses the locative case to express places where actions occur.

  • In Latin, the locative case is used for cities.

  • In some Slavic languages, the locative case indicates the location of an action, such as 'on the table.'

  • The use of the locative case can be crucial in understanding where an event takes place in many languages.

  • Students learn that the locative case changes the form of nouns to show their position or location.

Synonyms

locative
vslocative case
  • Specialized
9.9

A word form in a language that shows where something is or happens

is the same meaning but uses the full technical name

Surface Forms

locative case singular
locative cases plural

Morphology

locative + case

The meaning is directly compositional: 'locative' relates to location and 'case' is a grammatical inflectional category, so together they denote a grammatical case that marks location. This construction is cross-linguistically common (many languages have a locative case), so a learner who knows both constituent words can readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

The term locative case comes from the Latin root behind locative, from the word 'locus' meaning 'place'. Think of the case as a small tag that adds 'in' or 'at' to a noun, so the locative case shows where something happens.