8. THE NOUN : CASE .

Examine these sentences :-

1. David threw a stone.
2. The horse kicked the boy.

In the sentence 1 , the noun David is the Subject . It is answer to the question , "Who threw the stone ?" .
The group of the words threw a stone is the Predicate .
The Predicate contains the verb threw .
What did David throw ? - A stone . Stone is the object which David threw. The Noun stone is therefore called the Object.
In the sentence 2 , the noun horse is the Subject. It is answer to the question , 'who kicked the boy ?' .
The noun boy is the Object . It is answer to the question, 'Whom did the horse kick ?'

When a noun (0r pronoun) is used as the Subject of a verb , it is said to be in the Nominative Case .
When a noun (or pronoun) is used as the Object of a verb , it is said to be in the Objective (or Accusative) Case .

A noun which comes after a preposition is also said to be in the Accusative Case ; as ,
..... The book is in the desk .
The noun desk is in the Accusative Case , governed by the preposition in .

Read the following sentences :-
.... Hari broke the window (Object)
.... The window was broken . (Subject)
It will be seen that Nouns in English have the same form for the Nominative and the Accusative.

The Nominative generally comes before the verb , and the Accusative after the verb. Hence they are distinguished by the order of words , or by the sense .

Examine :-
This is Ram's umbrella .
Ram's umbrella = the umbrella belonging to Rama.
Rama is changed to Rama's to show the ownership or possession . The Noun Rama's is therefore said to be in Possessive Case .

The Possessive Case does not always denote possession . It is used to denote authorship , origin , kind etc ; as ,
Shakespeare's plays
A mother's love
Rama's temple
Solomon's temple