The usual dictionary definition of "oblique
case" (as opposed to "direct") is as given by Miguel, the rationale for it being
that the use of the oblique cases is determined by government
relations. However, in IE studies it is convenient to have a term which
distinguishes the nominative and the accusative (which almost always share the
same or nearly the same "strong" stem allomorph, and are not distinguished
for neuters) from the cases whose primary function is adjectival (gen.) or
adverbial (dat., loc., instr., ...), and which often show a different
("weak") form of the stem. When one speaks of the "oblique stem", that
means (rather loosely) the allomorph used with gen./dat./loc. ... endings, e.g.
*diw-/*dju- as opposed to *dje:u-/*djew-. It's a purely pragmatic
distiction.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 5:49 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Battle of the cow
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal:
> 2) Webster's defines
"oblique (case)" as "a grammatical case other
> than the nominative and
vocative".
Umm. Linguist writers tend to be oblique about oblique cases,
to the
point you sometimes think they are talking about a specific
grammatical case. In my experience, they seem to be speaking of the
accusative, and seemingly, never of the dative, but my own knowledge
collapses at this point, so I'm only giving an
impression.