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Vocative case

Grammar
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 used when directly addressing someone or something (e.g., “O Death, be not proud”), common in apostrophe.

Detailed Definition
Used to mark the addressee in speech or writing, the vocative frequently appears in poetry to signal direct address and often accompanies apostrophe, as with the exclamatory “O” in English lyric tradition.
Example
Example in poetry:
Vocative case: “O Captain! My Captain!” (Whitman); Apostrophe directly addresses absent entities; “O Death, where is thy sting?” (Bible); Vocative creates intimacy or dramatic urgency
Additional Notes
Rhetorical marker. Common in classical languages; in English its function is typically signaled by punctuation and particles like “O.”
Also Known As
Direct address invocation apostrophe case calling case vocative construction
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