The vocative case is the case used for a noun identifying the person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed and/or occasionally the determiners of that noun. A vocative expression is an expression of direct address, wherein the identity of the party being spoken to is set forth expressly within a sentence. For example, in the sentence, "I don't know, John," John is a vocative expression indicating the party who is being addressed. In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns and adjectives to indicate such features as number (typically singular vs. ... In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject, of direct object, or of possessor. ... This is a list of grammatical cases as they are used by various inflectional languages that have declension. ... In linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of transitive verbs and those of intransitive verbs. ... An oblique case (Latin: ) in linguistics is a noun case of analytic languages that is used generally when a noun is the predicate of a sentence or a preposition. ... In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated ABESS, from Latin abesse to be distant), caritive and privative (abbreviated PRIV) are names for a grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. ... In linguistics, ablative case (also called the sixth case) (abbreviated ABL) is a name given to cases in various languages whose common thread is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ. ... In ergative-absolutive languages, the absolutive is the grammatical case used to mark both the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb. ... The accusative case (abbreviated ACC) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. ... In the Finnish language, Estonian language and Hungarian language the adessive case (from Latin adesse to be present) is the fourth of the locative cases with the basic meaning of on. For example, Estonian laud (table) and laual (on the table), Hungarian asztal and asztalon (on the table). ... The adverbial case is a noun case in the Abkhaz language and Georgian language that has function similar to the translative and essive cases. ... In the Finnish language, the Allative case is the fifth of the locative cases, with the basic meaning of onto. Its ending is -lle, for example pöytä (table) and pöydälle (onto the top of the table). ... Antessive case[1] is used for marking before something (before the concert). The case is found in some Dravidian languages. ... Apudessive case[1] is used for marking location next to something (next to the house). The case is found in Tsez language. ... The aversive case is a grammatical case found in Australian languages that indicates that the marked noun is avoided or feared. ... The benefactive case is a case used where English would use for, for the benefit of, or intended for. ... In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated ABESS, from Latin abesse to be distant), caritive and privative (abbreviated PRIV) are names for a grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. ... The causal or causative case (abbreviated CAUS) is a grammatical case that indicates that the marked noun is the cause or reason for something. ... This case in Hungarian language combines the Causal case and the Final case: it can express the cause of emotions (eg. ... The Comitative case is used where English would use in company with or together with. It, and many other cases, are found in the Finnish language, the Hungarian language, and the Estonian language. ... The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. ... The delative case (from Latin deferre to bear or bring away or down) in the Hungarian language can originally express the movement from the surface of something (eg. ... In Indo-Aryan languages, the direct case is the name given to a grammatical case used with all three core relations: the agent of transitive verbs, the patient of transitive verbs, and the experiencer of intransitive verbs. ... This case in Hungarian language can express the manner when something happens to each member of a set one by one (eg. ... This case in Hungarian language can express how often something happens (eg. ... See Elative for disambiguation. ... In ergative-absolutive languages, the ergative case identifies the subject of a transitive verb. ... The essive or similaris case carries the meaning of a temporary state of being, often equivalent to the English as a. ... In Hungarian language this case combines the Essive case and the Formal case, and it can express the position, task, state (eg. ... This case in Hungarian language can express the state, capacity, task in which somebody is or which somebody has (Essive case, eg. ... Equative is a case with the meaning of comparison, or likening. ... The aversive case is a grammatical case found in Australian languages that indicates that the marked noun is avoided or feared. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Final case is used for marking final cause (for a house). Semitic languages had that case, but all of them lost it[1][2]. Causal-final case found in Hungarian language. ... In Hungarian language this case combines the Essive case and the Formal case, and it can express the position, task, state (eg. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Illative case in the Finno-Ugric languages Illative (from Latin inferre to bring in) is, in the Finnish language, Estonian language and the Hungarian language, the third of the locative cases with the basic meaning of into (the inside of). An example from Hungarian would be a házba (into... The inelative case expresses the notion from inside (ie. ... Inessive case (from Latin inesse to be in or at) is a locative grammatical case. ... In the Finnish language, the instructive case has the basic meaning of by means of. It is a comparatively rarely used case, though it is found in some commonly used expressions, such as omin silmin -> with ones own eyes. In modern Finnish, many of its instrumental uses are being... In linguistics, the instrumental case (also called the eighth case) indicates that a noun is the instrument or means by which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. ... This case in Hungarian language contains the Instrumental case and the Comitative case at the same time. ... The tone of this article is inappropriate for an encyclopedia article. ... Lative is a case which indicates motion to a location. ... Locative is a case which indicates a location. ... In linguistics,the Modal case is a grammatical case used to express ability, intention, necessity, obligation, permission, possibility, etc. ... Multiplicative case[1] is used for marking a number of something (three times). The case is found in Hungarian language. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... The basic meaning of the Partitive case is partialness, without result or without specifying identity. In the Finnish language, its used to express unknown identities and irresultative actions. ... In linguistics, the Pegative case is used for a case marking that a noun is an agent of an action that has a dative-like undergoer argument. ... Perlative case expresses that something moved through,across, or along the referent of the noun that is marked[1]. The case is found in the West Australian Kuku-Yalanji language[2] ^ Article Perlative Case on the Linguist list wiki ^ Robert Malcolm Ward Dixon, Australian Languages: their nature and development, page... Possessive case is a case that exists in some languages used for possession. ... In a passive sentence, when we want to say when or where something happens, we use a phrase that asks for details about the action. ... Prepositional case is a grammatical case that marks prepositions. ... In linguistics, abessive (abbreviated ABESS, from Latin abesse to be distant), caritive and privative (abbreviated PRIV) are names for a grammatical case expressing the lack or absence of the marked noun. ... The prolative case is a declension of a noun or pronoun that has the basic meaning of by way of. The prolative is widely used in Estonian. ... The prosecutive case is a declension found in Tundra Nenets language. ... The Proximative case is used to describe a meaning similar to that of the English preposition near to or close to. It is used in the logical language Gimív. An example of its use is ‘basúnid’ which the creator has given to mean ‘near a school. ... This case in Hungarian language can express the person in whose company (cf. ... The subessive case is a case indicating location under or below. ... This case in Hungarian language can express the destination of the movement, originally to the surface of something (eg. ... The Superessive case is a grammatical declension indicating location on top of something. ... In grammar, nouns in the superlative case typically denote objects over which or onto the top of which another object moves (movement over or onto the top of is important here). ... The temporal case in morphology is used to indicate a time. ... In morphology, the terminative case is a case that indicates to what point; where something ends. ... This declension (case) indicates a change in state of a noun, with the general sense of becoming X or change to X. In the Finnish language, this is the counterpart of the Essive case, with the basic meaning of a change of state. ... The vialis case is found in Eskimo languages. ... Czech declension describes the declension, or system of grammatically-determined modifications, in nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals in the Czech language. ... The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to modern German or Icelandic. ... German declension is the declensional system of the German language. ... The declension of Irish nouns, the definite article, and the adjectives is discussed on this page. ... Latin is an inflected language, and as such its nouns, pronouns, and adjectives must be declined in order to serve a grammatical function. ... Latvian declension describes the declension, or system of grammatically-determined modifications, in nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals in the Latvian language. ... Declension of the Lithuanian language is quite sophisticated similarly to that in ancient Indo-European languages (such as Sanskrit, Latin or Ancient Greek). ... See also: Slovak language. ... In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns and adjectives to indicate such features as number (typically singular vs. ... In linguistics, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... Determiners are words which quantify or identify nouns. ...

Historically, the vocative case was an element of the Indo-European system of cases, and existed in Latin, Sanskrit, and Classical Greek. Although it has been lost by many modern Indo-European languages, some languages have retained the vocative case to this day. Examples are Modern Greek, Albanian, Baltic languages Lithuanian and Latvian, and Slavic languages such as Polish, Czech, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Ukrainian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, and the modern Celtic languages such as Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic. Among the Romance languages the vocative was preserved in Romanian: it is also visible sometimes, in languages such as Catalan which employ the personal article but drop it in front of vocative forms. It also occurs in some non-Indo-European languages, such as Georgian, Arabic^{[dubious – discuss]}, Chinese^{[dubious – discuss]}, and Korean^{[dubious – discuss]}. For other uses, see Indo-European. ... For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... Sanskrit ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Main article: Greek language Modern Greek (Νέα Ελληνικά or Νεοελληνική, lit. ... The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... Serbian (; ) is one of the standard versions of the Shtokavian dialect, used primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and by Serbs in the Serbian diaspora. ... The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. ... // Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. ... This article is about the modern Goidelic language. ... The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family, comprising all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ... Catalan IPA: (català IPA: or []) is a Romance language, the national language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia , and in the city of LAlguer in the Italian island of Sardinia. ... Arabic redirects here. ...

The vocative case in various languages

Latin

In Latin the vocative case of a noun is the same as the nominative, except for singular second declension nouns that have the endings -us or -ius in the nominative case. An example would be the famous line from Shakespeare, "Et tu, Brute?" (commonly translated as "And you, Brutus?"), where Brute is the vocative case, whilst Brutus would be the nominative case. When "-ius" nouns are put into the vocative, however, they lose this ending and replace it with a "ī". Therefore, "Julius" becomes "Julī". When Latin names in the vocative case are translated into English, the nominative case is usually used, as English simply uses the nominative case for vocative expressions but sets them off from the rest of the sentences with pauses as interjections (rendered in writing as commas) (see below). For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ...

Four historical Indo-European languages

Take, for example, the word for "wolf":

Notes on notation: The elements separated with hyphens denote the stem, the so-called theme vowel of the case and the actual suffix. The symbol "Ø" means that there is no suffix in a place where other cases may have one. In Latin, e.g., the nominative case is lupus and the vocative case is lupe!, whereas the accusative case is lupum. The asterisk in front of the Indo-European words means that they are merely hypothetical reconstructions, not based on any written sources. Proto-Indo-European (PIE) may refer to: Proto-Indo-European language the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages Proto-Indo-Europeans, the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European roots, A list of reconstructed Proto-Indo-European roots Categories: | ... For other uses, see Latin (disambiguation). ... Sanskrit ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ...

Polish

In Polish, unlike in Latin, the vocative (wołacz) is almost always different from the nominative case, except neuter nouns and nouns in plural. and is formed according to a complex grammatical pattern. Here are some examples. The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ...

In informal speech, the nominative is increasingly used in place of the vocative, but this is regarded as a bad style in formal situations. The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun. ...

Czech

In Czech, the vocative (5. pád) is used in a similar way as in Polish. The vocative differs from the nominative in masculine and feminine nouns in singular. In linguistics, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... In linguistics, grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. ...

In informal speech, it is usual that the male surname (see also Czech name) is in nominative when addressing men, e.g. pane Novák! instead of pane Nováku! (Female surnames are adjectives, thus they are the same in the nominative as well as in the vocative - see Czech declension). Teachers often address their pupils with the surname in nominative. However, such addressing can seem impolite. Using the appropriate vocative is strongly recommended in the official and written styles. The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ... A family name, or surname, is that part of a persons name that indicates to what family he or she belongs. ... Czech names are composed of given names and surnames. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun. ... In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun (called the adjectives subject), giving more information about what the noun or pronoun refers to. ... Czech declension describes the declension, or system of grammatically-determined modifications, in nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals in the Czech language. ...

Bulgarian

Traditional names usually have a vocative case. Modern and foreign names don't.

Иван (nominative case)

Иване (vocative case)

Петър

Петре

Тодор

Тодоре

Some nouns also have the vocative case.

бог (god)

боже

господ (god)

господи

Иисус, Иисус Христос (Jesus, Jesus Christ)

Иисусе, Иисусе Христе

другар (comrade)

друже

поп (priest)

попе

It can also be constructed for nouns that normally don't have the vocative case as an attempt to achieve a particular stilistic effect - as in books for children etc.

жаба (frog)

жабо (somebody talks to the frog)

Russian

Historical vocative

The historical Slavic vocative has been lost in Russian, and currently can only be found in certain cases of archaic expressions. Two of those expressions are very common in colloquial Russian: "Боже!" (Bozhe, vocative of "Бог" Bog, "God"), often also used in expression "Боже мой!" (Bozhe moy, "My God!"), and "Господи!" (Gospodi, vocative of "Господь" Gospod, "Lord"). Both expressions are used to express strong emotions (much like English "O my God!"), and are often combined ("Господи, Боже мой"). More examples of historical vocative can be found in other Biblical quotes that are sometimes used as proverbs, e.g. "Врачу, исцелися сам" (Vrachu, istselisya sam - "Doctor, heal thyself", cf. nominative "врач", vrach). Vocative forms are also used in modern Church Slavonic. The patriarch and bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church are addressed as "владыко"(vladyko, hegemon, cf. nominative "владыка", vladyka). In the latter case the vocative form is often also incorrectly used as nominative to refer to bishops and the patriarchs.  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... Church Slavonic may refer to: Old Church Slavonic language Church Slavonic language This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (Russian: ), also known as the Orthodox Christian Church of Russia, is a body of Christians who are united under the Patriarch of Moscow, who in turn is in communion with the other patriarchs and primates of the Eastern Orthodox Church. ...

Neo-vocative

In modern colloquial Russian given names and a small family of terms often take a special "shortened" form that some linguists consider to be a reemerging vocative case. This form is applied only to given names and nouns that end in -a, which is optionally dropped in the vocative form: "Лен, где ты?" ("Lena, where are you?"). This is basically equivalent to "Лена, где ты?", the only difference being that the former version suggests a positive personal, emotional bond between the speaker and the person being addressed. In addition to given names, this form is often used with words like "мама" (mama, mom) and "папа" (papa, dad), which would be respectively "shortened" to "мам" (mam) and "пап" (pap). A given name specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name. ...

Such usage differs from historical vocative (which would be "Leno" in the example above) and is not related to such historical usage.

Ukrainian

Ukrainian has retained the vocative case, in contrast to the other, closely-related East Slavic languages, Belarusian and Russian. See Ukrainian grammar#Morphology for details. This article or section should be merged with List of East Slavic languages The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. ... The Ukrainian language possess an extremely rich grammatical structure inherited from Indo-European: Nouns have grammatical gender, number, and are declined for 7 cases; Adjectives agree with the noun in case, number, and gender; Verbs have 2 aspects, 3 tenses, 3 moods, and 2 voices. ...

Georgian

In Georgian, the vocative case is used for addressing the second singular and plural persons. For the word roots ending with a consonant, the vocative case suffix is -o, and for the words ending with a vowel, there is no suffix for the vocative case (the suffix used to be -v in old Georgian, but is now considered archaic). For example, kats- is the root for the word "man." If one addresses someone with this word, it becomes, katso!

Adjectives are also declined in the vocative case. Just like nouns, consonant final stem adjectives take the suffix -o in the vocative case, and the vowel final stems are not changed. Compare:

lamazi kali "beautiful woman" (nominative case)

lamazo kalo! "beautiful woman!" (vocative case)

In the second phrase, both the adjective and the noun are declined. The second singular and plural personal pronouns are also declined in the vocative case. Shen you(singular) and tkven you (plural) in the vocative case become, she! and tkve!, with the drop of the final -n. Therefore one could, for instance, say,

She lamazo kalo! "you beautiful woman!"

with the declination of all the elements.

Icelandic

The vocative case can generally not be found in Icelandic, although a very few words retain an archaic vocative declension from Latin, like the word Jesús, which is in vocative Jesú. This comes from Latin, as the Latin word for Jesus is simply Jesus and the vocative of that word is Jesu.

Example:

• Jesús (nominative) elskar þig.

  Jesus loves you.

• Ó Jesú (vocative), frelsari okkar.

  O Jesus, our saviour.

Romanian

The vocative case in Romanian is inherited from Latin. Morphologically it is formed using specific endings, occasionally causing other morphophonemic changes (see also the article on Romanian nouns): Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... This article is actively undergoing a major edit. ...

• singular masculine/neuter: "-e" as in
  • "om" - "omule!" (man, human being),
  • "băiat" - "băiete!" or "băiatule!" (boy),
  • "văr" - "vere!" (cousin),
  • "Ion" - "Ioane!" (John);

• singular feminine: "-o" as in
  • "soră" - "soro!" (sister),
  • "nebună" - "nebuno!" (mad woman),
  • "deşteaptă" - "deşteapto!" (smart one (f) , but this vocative is always used sarcastically),
  • "Ileana" - "Ileano!" (Helen);

• plural, all genders: "-lor" as in
  • "fraţi" - "fraţilor!" (brothers),
  • "boi" - "boilor!" (oxen, used toward people as an invective),
  • "doamne şi domni" - "doamnelor şi domnilor!" (ladies and gentlemen).

More often than not the vocative simply copies the nominative/accusative form, even when it does have its own. This happens because the vocative is often perceived as very direct and thus can seem rude.

Scottish Gaelic

In Gaelic, the vocative case causes lenition of the initial letter of names. In addition, male names are slenderized, if possible (that is, adds an 'i' before the final consonant). Also, the word a is placed before the name unless it begins with a vowel, e.g.: // Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. ... Lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. ...

Irish Gaelic

The vocative case in Irish Gaelic operates in a similar fashion to Scottish Gaelic. The principal marker is the vocative particle a which causes lenition of the initial letter. This article is about the modern Goidelic language. ... Lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. ...

In the singular there is no special form except for first declension nouns. These are masculine nouns ending in a 'broad', i.e. non-palatal, consonant which is made 'slender', i.e. palatal, to form the singular vocative (as well as the singular genitive and plural nominative). Adjectives are also lenited. In many cases this means that (in the singular) masculine vocative expressions resemble the genitive and feminine vocative expressions resemble the nominative. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments. ...

The vocative plural is usually the same as the nominative plural except once again for first declension nouns which show the vocative plural by adding -a.

Chinese

^{[dubious – discuss]} In Chinese, the vocative is used with name, kinship term or even positional title in casual situations. This is done by prefix 阿 (a); it is interchageable with 亞 in Cantonese. The use of vocatives is commonly found in Cantonese dialects. This article is about all of the Cantonese (Yue) dialects. ...

For example:

• Someone named 陳小明 (pinyin: chen xiao ming) can predictably be addressed as 阿明 (pinyin: a ming)
• When addressing one's own father and mother it is often said: 阿爸 (a ba) and 阿媽 (a ma) which are equivalent to "dad" and "mom" in English. This practice can applied to other simple single syllable kinship terms. As honorific, a stranger can be addressed as 阿伯 (a bak) for an old man, and 阿婆 (a po) for an old woman. This is found commonly in Cantonese dialects.
• When addressing someone of authority such as a male police officer or even male teacher, particularly in Hong Kong, 阿 Sir (a sœ in common Hong Kong English accent) would be the popular expression. Note also the anglicism in the Hong Kong speech. A female equivalent of the vocative expression, however, less common.

For more background on this topic, see languages of Hong Kong. ...

Korean

^{[dubious – discuss]} The vocative case in Korean is used only with first names in casual situations. This is done by suffixing 아 (a) if the name ends in a consonant and 야 (ya) if in a vowel:

미진은 집에 가겠어? (Mijin-eun chibe kagesseo?)
"Is Mijin going home?"

미진아, 집에 가겠어? (Mijin-a, chibe kagesseo?)
"Mijin, are you going home?

동배 뭐 해? (Dongbae meo hae?)
What is Dongbae doing?

동배야, 뭐 해? (Dongbae-ya, meo hae?)
"Dongbae, what are you doing?

Arabic

^{[dubious – discuss]} The vocative case is indicated in Arabic by the particle ya (Arabic: يا) placed before a noun. In English translations, this is often translated literally as O instead of being omitted. Arabic redirects here. ... Arabic redirects here. ...

Venetian

The vocative case in Venetian is not marked by any ending, since Venetian has lost case endings as most Romance languages, but it is still visible on feminine proper names due to the absence of the determiner, i.e. the personal article Ła / L' which usually precedes feminine names in other cases, even in predicates. Thus, vocative case is distinguished from both nominative and accusative cases although none of them bears endings nor prepositions. On the contrary, masculine names and other nouns only rely on intonation and voice breaks. A sign in Venetian reading Here we also speak Venetian Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken by over five million people,[1] mostly in the Veneto region of Italy. ...

The (presence/absence of the) personal article in feminine proper names also distinguishes the vocative case from predicates, differently from the definite article ła of common nouns which is dropped even in predicative constructions.

In some vernacular German, where it is common to use the (gender-)appropriate article before a person's name, the article is, as in Venetian, omitted when calling the person.