Case hierarchy

 ( Linguistic Typology ) 

The hierarchy is as follows:Blake, B. J. (2001). Case (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Nominative case < Accusative case / Ergative case < Genitive case < Dative case < Locative case < Ablative case / INS < others

This is only a general tendency, however. Many forms of Central German such as Colognian or Luxembourgish have a dative case but lack a genitive. In Irish language nouns, the nominative and accusative have fallen together, while the dative case has remained separate in some paradigms; Irish also has a genitive and vocative case. In Punjabi language, the accusative, genitive, and dative have merged to an oblique case, but the language still retains Vocative case, locative, and ablative cases. Old English had an instrumental case, but not a locative or prepositional.

Blake argues that it is "doubtful that the hierarchy can be extended much further", but does suggest that the most common cases not listed in the hierarchy are the Comitative case, Purposive case, Allative case, Perlative case and Comparative case.

• Differential object marking