Dative of purpose

The dative case (abbreviated dat, or sometimes d when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate, among other uses, the noun to which something is given, as in Maria Jacobo potum dedit, Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink".

In such examples, the dative marks the indirect object of a verb, although in some instances, the dative is used for the direct object of a verb pertaining directly to an act of giving something. This may be a tangible object (e.g. "a book" or "a tapestry"), or an intangible abstraction (e.g. "an answer" or "help").

Sometimes the dative has functions unrelated to giving. In Scottish Gaelic and Irish, the term dative case is used in traditional grammars to refer to the prepositional case-marking of nouns following simple prepositions and the definite article. In Georgian, the dative case also marks the subject of the sentence with some verbs and some tenses. This is called the dative construction.

The dative was common among early Indo-European languages and has survived to the present in the Balto-Slavic branch and the Germanic branch, among others. It also exists in similar forms in several non-Indo-European languages, such as the Uralic family of languages. In some languages, the dative case has assimilated the functions of other, now extinct cases. In Ancient Greek, the dative has the functions of the Proto-Indo-European locative and instrumental as well as those of the original dative.

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