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Dative case

Concept
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A grammatical case indicating the indirect object of a verb, occasionally used for poetic emphasis or archaic effect

Detailed Definition
Dative case is a grammatical case in inflected languages (e.g., Latin, Greek, German) that marks the indirect object—the recipient of an action (e.g., “to her” or “for them”); while English largely lacks case inflection, understanding the dative aids in interpreting classical poetry, biblical translations, or syntactically complex verse where word order alone doesn’t clarify relationships.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Latin poetry: “Puero librum dedi” (“I gave the book to the boy”), where “puero” is dative; In English poetic diction: “To him I gave my heart,” emphasizing indirect object; Shakespearean usage: “Give thou this ring to my true knight,” where “to my true knight” functions dative-like; Classical Greek example: “ἔδωκα αὐτῷ τὸ βιβλίον” (“I gave him the book”), with “αὐτῷ” in dative case
Additional Notes
Dative case (in languages like Latin or German) marks indirect objects; rarely relevant in English poetry but may appear in translated or classically influenced works—understanding it aids in interpreting syntactic nuance.
Also Known As
indirect object case grammatical dative Latin dative syntactic recipient beneficiary case recipient case
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