dativecase

The dative case is a grammatical case used in a number of language families to mark noun phrases that are indirectly affected by the action of the verb. It often indicates the recipient, beneficiary, or goal of an action, and it may appear in various constructions beyond these core functions.

In languages with rich case systems, the dative typically marks the indirect object of a verb or the target toward which an action is directed. It can encode the recipient of a transfer, the beneficiary of an action, or the direction to a location or person. Some languages also use the dative for certain set phrases or with specific verbs, and its morphology changes according to gender, number, and declension class.

Examples include Latin: librum puero do (I give a book to the boy); German: Ich gebe dem Mann das Buch (I give the man the book). In Russian, the dative marks beneficiaries or recipients in many verb constructions, e.g., я даю другу книгу (I give a book to a friend). In English, this function is usually expressed by the prepositions to or for, rather than by an inflected form.

Not all languages have a dative; some use other cases to express these roles or rely on prepositional phrases. The dative is one element of a broader system of nominative, accusative, dative, and other cases found in languages with explicit case marking.