Accusative Case
ದ್ವಿತೀಯಾ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ (ಕರ್ಮ)
The accusative case marks the direct object of a sentence — the thing an action is done to. German shows this by changing the article; Kannada shows it by changing the noun itself.
Grammar Comparison
ವ್ಯಾಕರಣ ಹೋಲಿಕೆ
den vs. -ಅನ್ನು
Ich sehe den Mann. (der → den — the masculine article changes)
ನಾನು ಮನುಷ್ಯನನ್ನು ನೋಡುತ್ತೇನೆ. (ಮನುಷ್ಯ → ಮನುಷ್ಯನನ್ನು — the noun itself takes -ಅನ್ನು)
Kannada marks a direct object by adding the accusative suffix -ಅನ್ನು straight onto the noun: ಮನುಷ್ಯ ('the man', subject form) becomes ಮನುಷ್ಯನನ್ನು ('the man', object form). German does the identical job — flagging 'this noun is being acted upon' — but only the masculine article changes shape (der → den); feminine die, neuter das, and all plurals die stay exactly the same in the accusative. So the accusative is only visible about a quarter of the time in German, versus almost always in Kannada.
Only 'der' words change — memorize just one row
der → den (masculine only); die, das, and plural die stay the same
ಲಿಂಗ ಯಾವುದೇ ಇರಲಿ, ಯಾವಾಗಲೂ -ಅನ್ನು ಸೇರುತ್ತದೆ
Because Kannada adds -ಅನ್ನು to every noun turned into an object, regardless of its class, it's tempting to expect German to mark every object too. It doesn't: die and das don't change at all between nominative and accusative. In practice, the entire accusative case comes down to memorizing one transformation — der becomes den when the masculine noun is the object — and recognizing that everything else looks identical to the subject form.
Vocabulary
ಪದಗಳು
- Kannada
- ಮನುಷ್ಯನನ್ನುmanushyanannu
- English
- the man (as object)
- Kannada
- ಹೆಂಗಸನ್ನುhengasannu
- English
- the woman (as object)
- Kannada
- ಮಗುವನ್ನುmaguvannu
- English
- the child (as object)
- Kannada
- ಒಂದು ನಾಯಿಯನ್ನುondu naayiyannu
- English
- a dog (as object)
- Kannada
- ಸೇಬನ್ನುsebannu
- English
- the apple (as object)
- Kannada
- ಕಾಫಿಯನ್ನುkaaphiyannu
- English
- the coffee (as object)