Talk:Vocative case

message: Albanian also has the vocative case 'O'. 193.187.100.41 (talk) 22:51, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Albanian

message: I'm not completely familiar with the technical jargon of verb tenses in English (sorry), but what do you mean when you say that, in English, the vocative case isn't marked? Reason I ask is because of the form "Sing in me, O muse", which is vocative. I don't believe "O" has any other function in English, so is that not a mark? -- PaulDrye
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I couldn't think of any other use for O either but you can make English vocative case sentences without O or any other mark. --rmhermen
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Given vocative examples without marker can be made in English, that justifies the "unmarked" description.  The existance of O I think qualifies as practically vestigial, rather like the word both doesn't indicate English actually has a dual number in addition to singular and plural. -- kd5mdk
::O and Oh sound alike but are spelled differently.   If you are a programmer designing a spellchecker, you should be aware that O and Oh might appear to be interchangeable in places, but Oh, Oh!, Oh? all have different meanings.   Not all of them denote a vocative function.  This is far from being a trivial matter.   216.99.198.244 (talk) 18:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  "O tempora! O mores!" isn't English but uses the "O". Maybe its use in English comes from Latin?  Is it being used vocatively here?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_tempora,_o_mores! 2.28.151.172 (talk) 01:10, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Marking vocative in English

message: The article currently states: The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person being addressed. At least in Polish and I'm almost sure that in other Slavic languages as well, a vocative case of any verb may be used i.e. not only people, but also abstracts (eg. ciemności! = O, darkness) and objects (książko! = O, book) may be addressed and if so, these nouns are then used in the vocative case. Of course the two latter situations are rare compared to addressing people, but sometimes these forms are indeed used. The section Vocative-like expressions in English also provides examples that addressing people is not the only use of this case.
As I hope to be agreed with, now I'm going to add appropriate examples to the Polish section of this article, but would like someone to update the article's initial paragraph as I'm having problems with terminology. Gdabski 23:11, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Addressing not only a person

message: There should be no comma after O, as in "O my God." If you are using Oh and not O, that is completely different. Entbark 18:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comma after O 

message: Actually, I can't find "Tue" in text; I saw it listed under Tuus on Wiktionary.  --Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici (talk) 23:24, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Cannot find it in my grammar. But who's the addressed one? The item owned by "thou" or "thou"? The consequences of pondering that is potentially mindcracking. Maybe it's a psychological blind spot of the grammar authors. Said: Rursus (☻) 08:06, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Isn't it ti? Compare with the vocative of meus; mi? --BiT (talk) 10:58, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No, those are barbarisms that are not to be found in traditional Classical Latin literature.  'Tuus' does not follow the model that applies to 'Meus'.  It doesn't matter how drunk or debauched a civilized Roman could get, he would not resort to that kind of an abomination.   216.99.198.244 (talk) 18:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Vocative of Tuus

message: Seeing as how Rasputin was on the verge of godhood if not sainthood, can his name take a vocative ending in any of the Slavic languages?
Is there a rule for polysyllabic nouns taking a vocative ending in any of the Russian or Slavic languages?   If a noun has three or more syllables, does that prevent it from taking a vocative form?   216.99.198.244 (talk) 18:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: In Czech language the vocative of Rasputin is Rasputine. Jednoucelovy (talk) 18:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vocative of Rasputin in Russian? 

message: "In informal neutral speech, the nominative is increasingly used in place of the vocative, but this is regarded as bad style in formal situations."
It's not true. It happens only with proper names. Appellative nouns must stay in Vocative, when the context needs it. Sentences like **"Pan profesor, mogę się o coś zapytać?" 'Professor, can I aks a question', **"Powiedz mi, przyjaciel" 'tell me, friend', **"co robisz, dureń" 'what are you doing, idiot' are UNGRAMMATICAL and are not used by any speaker of Polish, no matter if it's formal or unformal speech.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.18.20.64 (talk) 15:14, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Polish 

message: According to the Hindi-Urdu grammar page, that language has a vocative case; it is not listed among the Indo-European languages retaining a vocative case. Stifynsemons (talk) 05:04, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hindi-Urdu has a vocative case 

message: The article lists "Mr. President" and "Madam Chairman".
Should we also include other formal ways of addressing people like "Your Honor," "Your Majesty," "His Highness," etc.? 
I know the third-person conjugation is often used when using these addresses, for example "Is His Highness well today?"
-Helvetica (talk) 19:58, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  English examples... 

message: Though Swedish doesn't have a vocative case, maybe it should be mentioned that Swedish adjectives do change when used as a part of a vocative phrase, similarly to Icelandic:
(en) kär vän - (a) dear friend;
Kära vän! - dear friend!
Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken, sometimes the definite forms of Swedish nouns are used in vocative phrases instead of undefinite forms, such as "Hej, farsan!" - "Hi, daddy!" where "farsa" means "daddy", and "farsan" otherwise means "the daddy, the father". Further examples may be "gumman", "tjejen" etc.
I know these are not examples for a real vocative case, but I don't think they are less relevant here than English 'O' either.
Abcd9999 (talk) 15:01, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swedish? 

message: Neapolitan has a vocative case (and as well has many speakers), it might be good if an expert could make themselves available to create a section on Neapolitan.
Spope3 (talk) 06:32, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neapolitan? 

message: :
Any objection to changing this to
* In many modern Indo-European languages, the vocative case has merged with the nominative
?  "Lost" could be taken as meaning that vocative constructions are no longer possible!
Are there languages in which the vocative has merged with a case other than nominative? —Tamfang (talk) 22:45, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe I'm spoiled by Wikipedia jargon, but to me "merged with" expresses a symmetry, as when we merge two articles. For me, the asymmetry that in all cases I know it's always the nominative form that persists is better expressed with the old wording. Maybe a wording like "merged into" would be an acceptable compromise? — Sebastian 19:49, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  loss vs merger 

message: A discussion is taking place to address the redirect O word. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 May 15#O word until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  🌸 1.Ayana 🌸 (talk) 11:14, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "O word" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]]