Case

Case

Case is a characteristic of a noun or pronoun determined by the function it performs in a sentence. There are three cases in English: nominative, objective, and possessive.

Nominative Case

The nominative case, also known as the subjective case, is used for the subject of a sentence. The subject is the person or thing that performs the action described by the sentence’s main verb.

Subject: Isabella baked a pie.

Words for people or things that are identical to a subject are also in the nominative. These words include nouns in appositive phrases that follow a subject, and predicate nominatives—nouns that restate the subject and follow the verb to be.

Appositive: Isabella, the cook, baked a pie.
Predicate nominative: Isabella is a cook.

Objective Case

The objective case is used for direct objects and indirect objects. A direct object is the person or thing that receives the action described by a verb. An indirect object is the person or thing for which or to which the action is performed.

Direct object: Josephine threw the ball.
Indirect object: Josephine threw Henry the ball.

Objects of prepositions are also in the objective case.

Object of a preposition: Josephine threw the ball to the pitcher.

Possessive Case

The possessive case is used for nouns that express ownership or relationship.

Possessive of ownership: She borrowed her roommate’s hat.
Possessive of relationship: He visited Penny’s mother.

Changes in Form with Case

A noun is spelled the same in the nominative and objective case. In the possessive case, however, an apostrophe or an apostrophe followed by an s is usually added to the end.

Most personal pronouns have a different form for each case. For instance, the first person singular personal pronoun is I in the nominative, me in the objective, and my in the possessive. See Personal Pronouns for a list of the various forms of these pronouns.

The pronoun who also has three forms: who in the nominative, whom in the objective, and whose in the possessive. See Who vs. Whom and Who’s vs. Whose for more information.