nominativas

Nominativas, in linguistic terms, refers to the nominative case, a grammatical category used to mark the subject of a finite clause in languages that inflect words for case. The term comes from Latin nominativus, derived from nominare, meaning to name or designate.

Function and usage: In languages with a case system, the nominative is typically distinct from other cases such as the accusative, genitive, and dative. It most often marks the subject of a sentence and, in languages with copular constructions, can also govern predicate nouns or adjectives. The exact behavior of the nominative varies by language, including how it interacts with pronouns, verbs, and agreement.

Cross-linguistic perspective: Classical languages like Latin use explicit nominative endings on nouns and adjectives to identify the subject. German marks the subject with the nominative article and noun form, as in Das Mädchen liest ein Buch. In English, the nominative is primarily reflected in pronoun forms (I, you, he, she, we, they); nouns themselves do not change form for case in standard usage. Many languages with rich inflectional systems extend nominative morphology to adjectives and determiners, while others rely more on word order.

Additional notes: Some languages allow a noun to function as a subject without overt case marking, relying on syntactic position and function rather than inflection. In languages with a strong nominative–accusative alignment, the nominative and accusative are the primary contrasts used to indicate subject versus object.

See also: Nominative case, other grammatical cases (accusative, genitive, dative), pronoun cases, subject, predicate nominative.