The Dutch language in its modern form does not have grammatical cases, and nouns only have singular and plural forms. Many remnants of former case declensions remain in the Dutch language, but few of them are productive. One exception is the genitive case, which is still productive to a certain extent. Although in the spoken language the case system was probably in a state of collapse as early as the 16th century,E.g. the oldest grammar, Twe Spraack vande Nederduitsche letterkunst (1584), see dbnl already shows the confusion of masculine and feminine gender in the genitive as it quotes: "des heers, vrouws, diers", while at the same time trying to identify 6 cases as in Latin. The focus on Latin grammar would cause later grammarians to insist that "des vrouws" was wrong and to prescribe that it had to be "der vrouw". cases were still prescribed in the written standard up to 1946/1947.
The declensions are still present in the sociolect known as "tale Kanaäns" (the language of Canaan), which is used by conservative, pietistic, Dutch Reformed Dutch speakers. This is because of the fact this sociolect takes a lot of influence from Early Modern Dutch, the language of the Statenvertaling and the oudvaders.
Case usage The four Dutch cases were the nominative, genitive, dative and accusative. They were still alive and in use in Middle Dutch, but they gradually fell out of use in early modern Dutch. Seventeenth-century grammarians and those that came after them attempted to keep the case system alive, and codified a written standard that included them. This standard was prescriptive—an attempt to influence how people wrote and spoke Dutch rather than to reflect how they already spoke naturally. It included not just the crumbling case system, but also a strict separation between masculine and feminine genders, falling out of use in some dialects as well.
By the 18th century, the everyday spoken language had lost its case system in most dialects, but it remained present in the written standard. Rules for the use of cases were relaxed in the Marchant spelling of 1934, and were finally abolished in the 1946/1947 spelling reform, along with many other archaic features. After the reform, the use of cases was discouraged, although they were still allowed by the standard. In modern Dutch, they are preserved in certain fixed expressions. They also continue to be used when writers want to make something sound deliberately archaic.
Only the nominative case or the accusative case survives in the modern spoken language (nominativism and accusativism respectively); which case survives depends on the dialect. In dialects with accusativism, the masculine and feminine genders remain distinct; in dialects with nominativism, they are merged. This is because in the older declension, the nominative was the same for the masculine and feminine gender, but the accusative forms differed: Nominativism: In spoken northern Dutch, as well as the modern written standard. Examples: de man, een man (the man, a man), de vrouw, een vrouw (the woman, a woman) Accusativism: In spoken southern Dutch (especially Brabantian in the Netherlands and Belgium). Examples: den/d'n man, ene(n)/'ne(n) man, de vrouw, een vrouw.
Nominative In the older standard, the nominative (nominatief or eerste naamval) was used for the following:
Subject: Ik ga naar school. (I go to school) Predicate nominative: Peter is piloot. (Peter is a pilot)
Genitive The genitive ( or ) was used in the following cases:
Possession: (the man's hat), (Peter's friend) Relationship: (Son of man), (the realm of nature) Partitive: (One of the people is missing) Indicating time: (Mondays she studies geography) With certain adjectives, such as . As a complement of certain verbs, such as . Many of these uses are replaced by the preposition in modern Dutch. A few cases use other prepositions.
→ (One of them was able to escape) → (Have mercy on me)
The (possessive) genitives of the personal pronouns are replaced by the possessive pronouns. (a friend of mine) → (my friend)
The possessive form of the genitive is still productive when used with proper names. This form does not resemble the old genitive, which was a full case and had distinctive endings on each word in a phrase. Instead, it is a possessive clitic much like in English, and attaches to the last word in the whole phrase. For example, "" (John's car) is productive and in common usage. However, in some cases the old form is still productive to evoke a certain style: or to avoid using too often: .
A partitive genitive form of the adjective is still used after words like , (something, nothing), e.g. (something new).
Gerunds can sometimes still be found in the genitive case in expressions involving : , (until boredom set in) (until bleeding occurred)
The genitive of time and the old form of the possessive genitive are nowadays still used in quite a lot of more or less "frozen" forms: des daags (by day), des nachts or s nachts (by night), s ochtends (in the morning), s avonds (in the evening), s-Gravenhage, s-Hertogenbosch, s-Gravenbrakel, s-Hertogenrade (place names), etc.
Dative The dative (datief or derde naamval) was used in the following cases: Indirect object: Hij gaf hun het boek (He gave them the book) After the preposition te: ter plekke (on site), ten einde (at the end) After prepositions with a figurative meaning: in den beginne (at the beginning)
In modern Dutch, the dative case is technically still required after the preposition te (to). However, this preposition itself has fallen out of use, and is found only in fixed expressions. These expressions tend to keep the original dative form. For example, ten slotte 'finally', te allen tijde 'at all times'. It is also used somewhat productively for placenames without any case marking. For example, Het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam 'The National Museum in Amsterdam'. Even this is still dated to some degree.
Gerunds in -ing (which are feminine) can still be combined with ter (e.g. ter herdenking 'to commemorate') and enjoy a modicum of productivity, like ter wikifiëring 'to be wikified', which is certainly acceptable Dutch.
Accusative The accusative (accusatief or vierde naamval) was used in the following cases: Direct object: Jij sloeg mij (You hit me) Object of a preposition other than te: door mij (by me), bij hen (at their place)
The accusative case was left for objects of transitive verbs and objects of all prepositions except for te. However, as distinctions between the grammatical cases were only weakly felt among speakers of Dutch, the feminine and neuter declensions were identical in the nominative and accusative, and the masculine declension was identical for the accusative and dative, endless confusion reigned.
Articles
Definite article Singular Plural Masculine Feminine Neuter All Nominative de het ('t) de Genitive des ('s) der des ('s) der Dative den (d'n) den (d'n) Accusative de het ('t) de
The forms in brackets are shortened forms that were occasionally used. They were somewhat colloquial. des morgens → 's morgens (in the morning) het paard → 't paard (the horse)
The preposition te contracts with a following definite article: te den → ten, te der → ter. Compare this to German zum, zur. te der plaatse → ter plaatse (on the spot, on site, at the scene) te den tijde → ten tijde (at the time)
Indefinite article Masculine Feminine Neuter Nominative een ('n) een ('n), ene ('ne) een ('n) Genitive eens ('ns) ener eens ('ns) Dative enen ('nen) enen ('nen) Accusative een ('n), ene ('ne) een ('n)
Because Dutch had many spelling reforms, some forms had different spellings in the past. The stem was formerly spelled een- regardless of the ending, so eenen, eener etc. The modern spelling, given in the table, are written according to the rules of modern Dutch orthography.
The forms in brackets are shortened forms that were occasionally used. As with the shortenings of the definite article, these are colloquial. een paard → 'n paard (a horse) een koning → 'ne koning (a king) eens konings → 'ns konings (a king's) enen koning → 'nen koning (a king)
Nouns A distinction was made between strong and weak declensions. The weak declension had most cases with the ending in the singular, while the strong declension had other endings. This distinction was not as important in 19th century standard Dutch as it was in earlier Old and Middle Dutch. The two types were much more distinct in Old and Middle Dutch, but gradually became mixed together. The older strong plural forms disappeared so that all nouns became weak in the plural. In the singular the opposite happened: the weak declension was replaced with the strong declension in most nouns. The difference was then only relevant for the singular, the plural was the same for all nouns.
The older standards of Dutch maintained a strict separation between the masculine, feminine and neuter gender. While this is not significant in the modern language without cases, it was important in the older standard because the masculine and feminine nouns declined rather differently. Masculine and neuter nouns declined the same, and were usually strong, with some nouns retaining the weak declension. Feminine nouns declined differently, and there was no strong-versus-weak distinction for them.
Because the difference between masculine and feminine was disappearing or had already disappeared in the spoken language, some nouns tended to mix masculine and feminine endings. One will come across fixed expressions such as te zijner tijd (feminine dative singular) alongside destijds (masculine genitive singular). This confusion was largely eliminated when cases were abolished, but on the occasion that cases are used in modern Dutch, this confusion is very frequent in areas where the spoken language has only a single "common" gender. Thus, masculine and feminine case endings, when used nowadays, may be almost interchangeable.
Masculine and neuter nouns The following declension was used for most masculine and neuter nouns. It had also come to be used for female proper names, but normal feminine nouns used a separate declension, seen further below.
Strong nouns Singular Plural Nominative man mannen Genitive mans Dative manne/man Accusative man Singular Plural Nominative veld velden Genitive velds Dative velde/veld Accusative veld
Most nouns had in the genitive singular. This was extended to when it would have caused an awkward-to-pronounce combination of sounds otherwise (, gen. sg. ), but it was also used occasionally for nouns that did not require it. If the noun ended with a long vowel, then an apostrophe was included as in modern usage.
The of the dative singular was frequently dropped.See Bilderdijk (1826), p. 94; Brill (1871), p. 229.
Some masculine and neuter nouns became feminine in the dative singular. See below under "mixed nouns".
The plural could end in either or . A few had plurals in (, pl. ). This is the same as in modern Dutch.
Weak nouns Some nouns retained a weak genitive in the singular, including nouns with a nominative sg. in -e and substantivised adjectives.See Bilderdijk (1826), p. 95, 97; Brill (1871), p. 174, 177. Examples are mens (man), bode (courier), and dappere ("brave one").
Singular Plural Nominative mens mensen Genitive mensen Dative mense/mens Accusative mens Singular Plural Nominative bode boden Genitive boden Dative bode Accusative Singular Plural Nominative dappere dapperen Genitive dapperen Dative dappere Accusative Many of the weak nouns were words for people, including bediende (servant) graaf (count), heer (lord), hertog (duke), knaap (lad), prins (prince), vorst (prince). Hart (heart) belongs to the same group (but see below).