TOEIC Grammar

Case

Overview | Personal Pronoun/Determiner

Subjective/Nominative | Objective/Accusative

Case is the grammatical function of a noun or pronoun. There are only three cases in modern English, they
are subjective (he), objective (him) and possessive (his). They may seem more familiar in their old English
form - nominative, accusative and genitive. There is no dative case in modern English. Yippee!

First more good news. You cannot really go wrong here, we got rid of most of our cases and as a result
English is easier than many other languages because nouns and some indefinite pronouns (anyone,
someone, everyone, and so on) only have a distinctive case form for the possessive. There are a few
remnants of old English though, and pronouns have distinctive forms in all three cases and should be used
with a bit more care.

The pronoun cases are simple though. There are only three:-

1. Subjective case: pronouns used as subject.

2. Objective case: pronouns used as objects of verbs or prepositions.
3. Possessive case: pronouns which express ownership.

Personal Pronoun

Personal Pronoun
Subjective/Nominative Objective/Accusative Possessive/Genitive
Referring to the subject in a Referring to the object in a The apostrophe form of the
sentence sentence word ("Lynne's).

I Me Mine
You You Yours
He Him His
She Her Hers
It It Its
We Us Ours
They Them Theirs
Who Whom Whose

These pronouns, and who and its compounds, are the only words that are inflected in all three cases
(subjective, objective, possessive). In nouns the first two cases (subjective and objective) are
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indistinguishable, and are called the common case. One result of this simplicity is that, the sense of case
being almost lost, the few mistakes that can be made are made often, even by native speakers, some of
them so often that they are now almost right by prescription.

Used especially to identify the subject of a finite verb.

A noun or pronoun is in the subjective when it is used as the subject of the sentence or as a predicate
noun. In the following examples, nouns and pronouns in the subjective case are italicized.

A noun in the subjective case is often the subject of a verb.

For example:

 "The tree fell on my car", "the tree" is in the nominative

case because it's the subject of the verb "fell".

Pronouns are inflected to show the subjective case.

Personal Pronoun
Subjective/Nominative
Referring to the subject in a sentence.

I
You
He
She
It
We
They
Who

For example:

 Lynne owns this web site.

 I hope to finish my homework tomorrow.
 She enjoyed her English lessons.
 He is an idiot. (The word idiot is a predicate noun because
it follows is; a form of the verb "be")

Objective / Accusative Case

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A noun or pronoun is in the objective case when it is used as a direct object, an indirect object, or an object.

A noun which is directly affected by the action of a verb is put into the objective case. In English we call this
noun the "direct object" which is a little more descriptive of its function. It's the direct object of some action.

 Robert fixed the car.

In the example above, the "car" is in the objective case because it's the direct object of Robert's action of
fixing.

Pronouns are inflected to show the objective case.

Personal Pronoun
Objective/Accusative
Referring to the object in a sentence

Me
You
Him
Her
It
Us
Them
Whom

For example:

 The web site gave Lynne a headache.

 Mum gave us the money.
 She gave him the book.

Possessive Case

The possessive case is used to show ownership. (Lynne's website.)

The good news is that the genetive case is used less and less in English today. Hooray!

You may still hear someone say something like "The mother of the bride," but it could equally be; "The
bride's mother."
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However, the possessive pattern ('s) is generally used when indicate a relation of ownership or association
with a person, rather than a thing.

For example:-

 Lynne's web site kept growing larger and larger.

There are, as ever, exceptions to this rule. When a group of people is involved or animals.

For example:-

 The members' forum.

 The dogs' tails.

Singular and irregular plural nouns that don't end in 's' take -'s.

For example:-

 Lynne's web site.

 The people's court.

Plural nouns that end in " s " take an apostrophe at the end ( ' ).

For example:-

 The girls' dresses.

People's names that end in "s" you can write (') or ('s).

For example:-

 Charles' job was on the line.

or

 Charles's job was on the line.

Try to avoid sounding like hissing Sid though. When an added - s would lead to three closely bunched s or
z sounds just use an apostrophe at the end.

 The map of Ulysses' journey.

If you have to show joint ownership, give the possessive form to the final name only.
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 Abbott and Costello's famous baseball sketch.

Pronouns and determiners are inflected to show the possessive case.

Personal Pronoun/Determiner

Possessive
Lynne's Lynne's
My Mine
Your Yours
His His
Her Hers
Its Its
Our Ours
Their Theirs
Whose Whose

For example:-

 This is Lynne's web site. It's my website!. It's mine!

 It's not Zozanga's web site. It's not his website. It's not
his.
 Have you seen her book? It's her book. It's hers.

Genitive Case

You should still use the genetive case when talking about things that belong to other things.

For example:-

 The door of the car.

 The content of the website.
 The top of the page.

!Tip - If you aren't sure what to use stick to (of the).