Grammatical Cases: Why are they considered so hard?

[reineke]

"A fully declined Latin adjective would have two numbers, seven cases, and three genders, or forty-two forms, of which you will most likely need to learn thirty..."

That's total nonsense. All you need to know is the nominative singular and maybe the genitive singular, if there are stem changes. All other forms are regular and can be derived.

By the way, Latin has five cases, or maybe six if we count the vocative...

You should take it up with the author:

Donald Fairbairn is the Robert E. Cooley Professor of Early Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the author of Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology with the Help of the Church Fathers, Grace and Christology in the Early Church, and Eastern Orthodoxy through Western Eyes.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:

"This is an essential companion to introductory texts on first-year Greek or first-year Latin. As students learn less and less English grammar in primary and secondary education, virtually all foreign-language instructors must supplement their standard introductions. Why not do it with a book that teaches exactly what is needed to understand beginning Greek and Latin grammar, no more and no less? Equally valuable for both languages, with little that is superfluous for either, Fairbairn's book is clear, concise, and motivational. I recommend it enthusiastically."--Craig L. Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Denver Seminary

"Fairbairn's Understanding Language illuminates the complexities of both classical tongues in many helpful ways by anticipating major challenges faced by today's classics teachers in explaining, and their Anglophone students in comprehending, grammatical issues. His emphasis on the functions of forms is especially welcome and impressive."--Judith P. Hallett, Professor of Classics, University of Maryland

[Josquin]

Okay, but what he writes is still wrong...

[reineke]

"A sixth case, the vocative, is used for addressing. With most nouns it is identical with the nominative, e.g. ō rēx "o king!". A seventh case, the locative, has marginal use, and is mostly found with the names of towns and cities, e.g. Rōmae "in Rome"." Wikip.

[Josquin]

"A sixth case, the vocative, is used for addressing. With most nouns it is identical with the nominative, e.g. ō rēx "o king!". A seventh case, the locative, has marginal use, and is mostly found with the names of towns and cities, e.g. Rōmae "in Rome"." Wikip.

Yeah, but the point is these don't have special forms for adjectives. The vocative only exists for nouns and adjectives ending in -us (masculine o-declension) and the locative only exists for some special nouns like Athenae, Roma, domus, etc. and has no special forms for adjectives at all.

The adjective only has forms for the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative. None of these need to be memorized, but follow straightforward rules. I know Latin.

[s_allard]

I have to say that I'm enjoying this debate, all the more so that I actually like learning the German case system. I have no idea why people think that calling something arbitrary and devoid of (semantic) meaning means that I'm suggesting not learning to use the system as it is today. Regardless of what I may think of the system I'm not preparing for the exam by ignoring the cases and hoping that the examiner will like my Tarzan German. Nothing could be sillier.

That said, I'm trying to answer the OP's question "Why are they (grammatical cases) considered so hard?". My only recent experience with cases is with German. I can't discuss how cases work in Russian, Polish or Hungarian. So, my approach to the question is really why is the German noun case system considered hard and why all observers consider it probably the most difficult part of German for English or French speakers (my situation) to learn.

As a language teacher myself, I see every day how certain subsystems of a language are more challenging than others, depending on the linguistic background of the learner and on the workings of the subsystem. So, for example the speaker of English finds the French grammatical gender subsystem very challenging. I won't try to explain why here except to say that I think the same issues or arbitrariness a lack of (semantic) meaning apply. That's another debate but I will add that the whole system is now undergoing a major change because of a movement to make the language less sexist and more gender neutral or egalitarian.

So, why is the German case system so difficult for some of us? I see two reasons: 1) A confusing set of units including some that are identical in form but different in meaning and 2) in certain parts, notably with prepositions, a lack of meaning other than grammatical. I should also say in passing that the exact same thing could be said about the French verb subjunctive subsystem that is notoriously difficult to master.

To see what I mean when I speak about grammatical meaning, let's look at the following examples:

1) *Das war ein gut Jahr
2) Das war ein gutes Jahr

Please, I don't need anyone to shout at me that example 1) is ungrammatical Tarzan German. I promise I will use 2) on the exam. But the fundamental question is what information does the -es in gutes carry in 2) that is not in 1). In terms of semantic meaning, absolutely nothing. On other hand, the ending -es gives the grammatical meaning that when a determiner and an adjective come before a nominative DAS noun, they will take an -es to be grammatically correct. The fundamental or semantic meaning of 2) is in no way different from 1).

This mastery of the noun gender and case system also demonstrates to everyone that the speaker is a good speaker of the language. A lack of this mastery marks the person as uneducated, uncultured and maybe a foreigner. The mastery of such a system often requires years of schooling.

I won't say the same for German (yet), but as a rather experienced teacher of French, I, like most colleagues, believe that many features of French exist solely to make the life of the learner miserable. Many things could be simplified but for powerful forces, starting with the Académie française, who believe that things should never change.

Edit: some clarification. Thanks to Josquin, I corrected eines to ein.

[Josquin]

1) *Das war ein gut Jahr
2) Das war eines gutes Jahr

Please, I don't anyone to shout at me that example 1) is ungrammatical Tarzan German. I promise I will use 2) on the exam.

2) is just as ungrammatical as 1). The correct sentence has to be: Das war ein gutes Jahr.

[reineke]

By the way, Latin has five cases, or maybe six if we count the vocative...

"A sixth case, the vocative, is used for addressing. With most nouns it is identical with the nominative, e.g. ō rēx "o king!". A seventh case, the locative, has marginal use, and is mostly found with the names of towns and cities, e.g. Rōmae "in Rome"." Wikip.

Yeah, but the point is these don't have special forms for adjectives. The vocative only exists for nouns and adjectives ending in -us (masculine o-declension) and the locative only exists for some special nouns like Athenae, Roma, domus, etc. and has no special forms for adjectives at all.

The adjective only has forms for the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative. None of these need to be memorized, but follow straightforward rules. I know Latin.

An adjective qualifying a name in the locative usually agrees with the locative form: Cic. Clu. 27 alter filius Teani Apuli educabatur. 'The other son was being educated at Apulian ...

E. C. Woodcock · 1959

As I understand it's rare and it can be described differently. Also, your previous statement referred to Latin in general. I don't know Latin.

[Josquin]

The point goes to you, but let me remark that the locative is formally identical with the genitive. Once again, there are no special forms for the locative that one might need to learn!

When Fairbairn says the Latin adjective is declined according to seven cases, that's simply not true. That's like saying Russian has eight cases because of the partitive and the locative. There are special nouns that do have a vocative or a locative form (in Latin), but this doesn't really affect adjective declension.

Anywho, my main point was you don't have to learn every form of every adjective separately as the Fairbairn quote might suggest. Latin declension follows very logical, straightforward rules. If you know three types of declension (o, a, consonantal) you know 99% of Latin adjective declension without having to memorize any additional information.

[Josquin]

Also, your previous statement referred to Latin in general. I don't know Latin.

The locative doesn't really count as a case of its own in Latin grammar. I'm repeating myself, but there is only a handful of words whose locative forms are different from the regular ablativus locativus. You trying to prove your point here is, pardon me, pointless...

[reineke]

That's total nonsense...

You trying to prove your point here is, pardon me, pointless...

You made your point loud and clear.