Chapter 7.4: Bangla Case Markers

In Bangla, language case markers or endings have an important role that determines the meaning of nouns or pronouns and their relationship with other words in a sentence. Bangla case markers function somewhat like prepositions in English. However, they remain attached to the noun or pronoun like a suffix. There are four cases that have markers in Bangla. Those are nominative case, objective or accusative case, possessive or genitive case, and locative case.

Nominative Case

Nominative case marks the subject of the sentence.

Marker: Usually, there is no explicit case marker. Occasionally the suffix -e (এ) may be added .

Examples:

• উনি গান করেন। “She sings.”
• লোকে বলে। “People say.”

Objective or Accusative Case

Objective or accusative case marks the object of the sentence.

Marker: -কে

If the grammatical object of the sentence is a human being, then the -কে case marker is added to that.

Example: আমি তাঁকে চিনি। “I know her.”

But, for non-human objects of a sentence no case marker is usually required.

Example: আমি একটা গাড়ি চাই। “I want a car.”

There are two grammatical objects in the following sentence. The -কে case marker is added to the human object, তোমাকে, while no case marker is added to the non-human object, বই।.

Example: আমি তোমাকে একটা বই দেব। “I will give you a book.”

Possessive or Genitive Case

Possessive or genitive case marks possession, attribute, material, function, age, etc.

Marker: -র, -এর

Examples:

Locative Case

Locative case describes location, destination.

Marker: -এ, -তে, -য়

Examples:

Test Yourself

You may need to download and install the Avro Keyboard for writing Bangla in order to complete this exercise. Avro is free and open source software that can be downloaded from OmicronLab (https://www.omicronlab.com/).