In grammar, the instrumental case (abbreviated ins or instr) is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. The noun may be either a physical object or an abstract concept.
General discussion The instrumental case appears in this Russian sentence:
Here, the inflection of the noun meaning "quill pen" indicates its instrumental role: the nominative перо changes its ending to become пером. Modern English expresses the instrumental meaning by use of adverbial phrases that begin with the words with, by, or using, followed by the noun indicating the instrument:
I wrote the note with a pen. I wrote the note (by) using a pen. Technical descriptions often use the phrase "by means of", which is similar to "by use of", as in:
I wrote the note by means of a pen. I wrote the note by use of a pen. This can be replaced by "via", which is a Latin ablative (viā) of the nominative via, meaning road, route, or way. In the ablative it means by way of. The instrumental case appears in Old English, Old Saxon, Georgian, Armenian, Basque, Sanskrit, and the Balto-Slavic languages. An instrumental/comitative case is arguably present in Turkish as well as in Tamil. Also, Uralic languages reuse the adessive case where available, locative case if not, to mark the same category, or comitative case (Estonian). For example, the Finnish kirjoitan kynällä does not mean "I write on a pen", but "I write using a pen", even if the adessive -llä is used. In Ob-Ugric languages, the same category may also mark agents with verbs that use an ergative alignment, for instance, "I give you, using a pen". The instrumental case is notably used in Russian, where the case is called творительный падеж (tvoritel'nyj padež) though similar usages also can be found in other Balto-Slavic languages. In most declension paradigms, the instrumental case in Russian can generally be distinguished by the -ом ("-om") suffix for most masculine and neuter nouns, the -ою/-oй ("-oju"/"-oj") suffix for most feminine nouns and -ами ("-ami") for any of the three genders in the plural. Just as in English the preposition "with" can express instrumental ("using, by means of"), comitative ("in the company of"), and a number of other semantic relations, the instrumental case in Russian is not limited to its instrumental thematic role. It is also used to denote:
the agent in a passive voice construction. E.g.: "Книга написана Марком Твеном" ("The book was written by Mark Twain"). Here, "Марком Твеном" ("by Mark Twain") is "Марк Твен" ("Mark Twain") in the instrumental case. a predicate with infinitive, future tense, imperative, conditional and gerund of the verbs "быть" and "являться" (both meaning 'to be') (for example, "я хочу быть врачом", "не будь трусом" translate as "I want to be a doctor" and "don't be a coward", with the nouns in the instrumental case). a predicate with a number of other verbs, denoting state, appearance, manner, consideration, etc. parts of the day, seasons of the year, and some other temporal relations. For example, the sentence "я работаю утром" (ja rabotaju utrom) means "I work in the morning". The word утро (utro, "morning") in its instrumental case denotes the time in which the action (in the case of this example, "working") takes place ("in the morning"). similarity. For example, the phrases "выть волком," "умереть героем," "лететь стрелой" (to howl like a wolf, to die like a hero, to fly like an arrow) use nouns in the instrumental case. location, when used with prepositions "behind", "in front of", "under", "above", "next to", and "between" The Russian instrumental case is also used with verbs of use and control (to own, to manage, to abuse, to rule, to possess, etc.), attitude (to be proud of, to threaten (with), to value, to be interested (in), to admire, to be obsessed (with), etc.), reciprocal action (to share, to exchange), and some other verbs. Though the instrumental case does not exist in many languages, some languages use other cases to denote the means, or instrument, of an action. In Classical Greek, for example, the dative case is used as the instrumental case. This can be seen in the sentence "..με κτείνει δόλῳ," or "..me ktenei dolôi" (Book IX, line 407 of the Odyssey), which means "he kills me with a bait". Here, "δόλῳ," the dative of "δόλος" ("dolos" – a bait) is used as the instrumental case (the means or instrument here is, obviously, the bait). In Latin the instrumental case has merged with the ablative, thus the ablative case has the same functions. For example, ipso facto can be translated as "by the fact itself", while oculīs vidēre means "to see with one's eyes". In Modern English, the word why is one instance of an etymologically instrumental declension. Though not commonly known to be of pronominal origin, it was, in fact, inherited from Old English hwȳ, which was the declension of hwæt (now what) in the Old English instrumental case – a grammatical feature rare even in Old English. The modern instrumental case (as present in why) does not bear the meaning of instrument, but of purpose, cause, or reason: rather, the closely related form how is used to express instrument, way, or means. In phrases such as "The more, the merrier", the word the derives from the instrumental case of the demonstrative pronoun related to the modern English word that.
Indo-European languages Proto-Indo-European has been reconstructed as having eight cases, one of which was the instrumental.
Sanskrit The instrumental case in Classical Sanskrit can have several meanings:
It can indicate the instrument (of an action):
It can be used to indicate someone or something accompanying an action. In this case, the sense of "company" is indicated by postpositions like सह saha ("with") (may be optionally omitted):
It can indicate the agent of a passive verb:
It can indicate the cause, reason or circumstance of an action. In this case, it can be translated as "because of", "out of", etc.:
It is used with the preposition विना vinā ("without"):
It can also be used with the particles अलम् alam and कृतम् kṛtam, both meaning "enough".
Assamese In Standard Assamese (এ)ৰে (e)re indicates the instrumental case. (এ)দি (e)di does the job in some dialects.
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