English
The Old English language, current until approximately sometime after the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, had a dative case; however, the English case system gradually fell into disuse during the Middle English period, when in pronouns the accusative and dative merged into a single oblique case that was also used for all prepositions. This conflation of case in Middle and Modern English has led most modern grammarians to discard the "accusative" and "dative" labels as obsolete, often using the term "objective" for oblique.
Read more about this topic: Dative Case
Famous quotes containing the word english:
“The two most beautiful words in the English language are “check enclosed.””
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)
“So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country bumpkins, they betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to settle, the Irish question, for instance,—the English question why did I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their “good breeding” respects only secondary objects.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Roman rule was, to teach a boy nothing that he could not learn standing. The old English rule was, “All summer in the field, and all winter in the study.” And it seems as if a man should learn to plant, or to fish, or to hunt, that he might secure his subsistence at all events, and not be painful to his friends and fellow men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)