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Accusative absoluteThe accusative absolute is a grammatical construction found in some languages. It is an absolute construction found in the accusative case. GreekIn ancient Greek, the accusative case is used adverbially with participles of impersonal verbs, similarly to the genitive absolute.[1] For example: συνδόξαν sundóxan seeming good-ACC τῷ tôi the-MASC.DAT.SG πατρὶ patrì father-DAT καὶ kaì and τῇ têi the-FEM.DAT.SG μητρὶ mētrì mother-DAT γαμεῖ gameî marries τὴν tḕn the-FEM.ACC.SG Κυαξάρου Kuaxárou Cyaxares-gen θυγατέρα thugatéra daughter-ACC "It seeming good to his father and mother, he marries the daughter of Cyaxares." (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.5.28) GermanIn German, a noun phrase can be put in the accusative to indicate that the sentence's subject has the property it describes.[2] For example: Neben next to ihm him saß sat der the dünnhaarige thin-haired Pianist, pianist den the-MASC.ACC.SG Kopf head im in the Nacken, neck und and lauschte. listened "The thin-haired pianist, his head back (lit. his head in his neck), sat next to him and listened." LatinThe accusative absolute is sometimes found in place of the ablative absolute in the Latin of Late Antiquity as, for example, in the writings of Gregory of Tours and Jordanes. This likely arose when the pronunciations of the ablative and accusative singulars merged, since the final -m of the accusative singular was no longer pronounced, having been fading since the Classical era. The accusative absolute is also found with plural nouns whose ablative and accusative are not similar in pronunciation. Sources |