Vocative case

The vocative case (classical and modern Greek: κλητική; Latin: Vocativus; comes from the Latin words vocativus, from vocatus, “call”, “invocation”; abbreviation: “voc.”) is a grammatical case used to identify the name to which the speaker is addressing.

It is the fifth case of the Latin declension of names, in which the person with whom we speak is placed.

Historically, the vocative case was an element of the Indo-European case system and existed in Latin, Sanskrit, and Greek. Many modern Indo-European languages (Spanish, English, etc.) have lost the vocative case, but others retain it, including Baltic languages such as Lithuanian, some Celtic languages such as Scottish Gaelic and Irish, and most Slavic languages (Polish, Czech, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, etc.). Among the Romance languages, the vocative was preserved only in Romanian, possibly due to Slavic influence. It also occurs in some non-Indo-European languages such as Georgian, Arabic, and Korean.

Some linguists, such as Albert Thumb, argue that the vocative form is not a case in the grammatical sense because it does not function as part of a sentence, but a special form of nouns that does not belong to any case, since vocative expressions they are not syntactically related to other words in sentences. Pronouns often lack vocative forms.

Features

When a vocative is used, the item to which the speaker is addressing is stated, directly. For example, in the sentence «I don't understand you, Juan», Juan is a vocative that indicates the recipient of the message, or the person to whom the speaker is addressing.

In some languages, the language function known as the phatic function, or contact function, serves to verify that there is an open channel of communication. In the past, when a ship crossed another on the high seas at night, or when someone arrived at a house or farmhouse without knowing if anyone was inside, it was usually expressed with a phatic formula ad hoc that had the same function as a vocative: "Ah from the boat!", or "Ah from the house!".

In Arabic there is no vocative case but there is a particle that serves to mark this function, yā (يا), which was used in medieval Spanish; It is collected, for example, in the Cantar de Mio Cid in the phrase "hya Mío Cid...". This Arabic vocative, pronounced ye' in Andalusian Arabic due to the vowel closure (or imala) it was frequently used and is still in use, with notable vitality, in the Valencian Community.

A vocative has also passed into Spanish in the word chaval, since chavalé, from which it comes, is in the Romany (gypsy) language the vocative of the word chabuk ("boy"), which in turn has given rise to the Spanish chavo.

In Valencian and River Plate Spanish, the word "che" to mark the vocative, and its use is generally restricted to informal conversation. Example: "Che, Carlos, can you pass me the salt?". It has been speculated whether the Valencian che has its origins in an evolution of the Arabic vocative ye, but the fact that currently in the Valencian Community so many che as ye detracts from the credibility of this hypothesis.

In 16th-century Nahuatl, to mark the vocative, men changed the stressed syllable from the penultimate to the last syllable, using the suffix -é: cihuātl (/ˈsi.waːt͡ɬ/), mujer - cihuātlé (/si.waː't͡ɬe/) - "Oh, woman"; while women simply changed the stressed syllable from the penultimate to the last: cihuātl (/ˈsi.waːt͡ɬ/), woman - cihuātl (/si.waːˈt͡ɬ/) - "Oh, woman".

Examples

• Polish: Żegnaj, synuBye. son!
• Nahuatl: MēxihcahE ma huāllatotōcah - Mexicans, run here; TotahtzinE - Oh, our Father.