True objective explanation
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True objective (accusative) case
In Old English, of which aspects meandered their way through dalq'qörian from Cadoc's reign, there existed what I must term a true objective case. This means that the articles a and the are different for the subject and object of a sentence (see German). This meant that, because the subject and object were diffirentiated, word order was less rigid, and could easily be swapped around for ,let's say, emphasis. Look at this example (in OE):
- se mann rídeð ðæt hors-A man rides a horse.
se can only mark the subject. However, in OE one might wish to vary this by calling special attention to the horse as for example, in answer to the question Hwæt rídeð se mann? What is that man riding?, by saying:
- ðæt hors rídeð se mann.
Although the sentence now reads: A horse rides a man in English, the only way to efficiently translate this is to say, It's a horse that the man rides/is riding. But in OE it still translates as, A man rides a horse, because of the caseing.
As stated, dal'qörian lost this use over time, becoming more related to English (probably due to its very close governmental and trade relationships over the past couple of centuries).
