Dativelocation

Dativelocation is a term used in linguistic description to denote a group of constructions in which the dative case marks a location or locus rather than the more typical recipient or indirect object function. The concept is most often discussed in languages with rich case systems and prepositions that select the dative. In such systems, a noun phrase in the dative can function as the place where an event occurs or the state in which someone or something is situated, especially with verbs of position or static description. Dativelocation is related to but distinct from locative case systems, which explicitly encode location through a separate case in some languages; in dativelocation the locative interpretation arises through the interaction of the dative with prepositions or with certain verbral constructions.

In practice, dativelocation constructions frequently involve prepositions whose governing case is dative, such as German bei, zu, gegenüber or with other dative-governing prepositions, producing phrases that specify location. For example in German, Ich bleibe beim Café (I stay at the café) uses the dative form dem Café after the contracted preposition beim to express location. Another example is Ich stehe beim Baum (I stand by the tree), where the noun in dative marks the location of the action.

The term is not universally adopted and is mainly used in descriptive or typological accounts of particular languages. It serves as a way to describe observations where the dative case encodes locative meaning in contexts traditionally expressed by prepositions or locative constructions.