In grammar, the locative case ( LOK-ə-tiv; abbreviated loc) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. In languages using it, the locative case may perform a function which in English would be expressed with such prepositions as "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases, together with the lative and ablative case. The locative case exists in many language groups.
Indo-European languages The Proto-Indo-European language had a locative case expressing "place where", an adverbial function. The endings are reconstructed as follows:
In most later Indo-European languages, the locative case merged into other cases (often genitive or dative) in form and/or function, but some daughter languages retained it as a distinct case. It is found in:
modern Balto-Slavic languages, except Bulgarian and Macedonian, although it is mostly used with prepositions in the other Slavic languages some classical Indo-European languages, particularly Sanskrit and Old Latin (Mostly uncommon, archaic or literary) use in certain modern Indic languages (such as Bangla and Marathi—in which, however, a separate ablative case has disappeared)
Latin Old Latin still had a functioning locative singular, which descended from the Proto-Indo-European form. The locative plural was already identical to the dative and ablative plural. In Classical Latin, changes to the Old Latin diphthongs caused the originally-distinctive ending of the locative singular to become indistinguishable from the endings of some other cases.
Because the locative was already identical to the ablative (which had a "location" meaning as well) in the plural, the loss of distinction between the endings eventually caused the functions of the locative case to be absorbed by the ablative case in Classical Latin. The original locative singular ending, descended from the Old Latin form, remained in use for a few words. For first and second declension, it was identical to the genitive singular form. In archaic times, the locative singular of third declension nouns was still interchangeable between ablative and dative forms, but in the Augustan Period the use of the ablative form became fixed. Therefore, both forms rūrī and rūre may be encountered. The locative ending of the fifth declension was -ē (singular only), identical to the ablative singular, as in hodiē ('today'). The Latin locative case was only used for the names of cities, "small" islands and a few other isolated words. The Romans considered all Mediterranean islands to be small except for Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Crete, and Cyprus. Britannia was also considered to be a "large island". There are a few nouns that use the locative instead of a preposition:
bellī and mīlitiae are particularly used in contrast to domī, "at home" to convey that someone is away on military service, and are used interchangeably. The first declension locative is by far the most common, because so many Roman place names were first declension, such as Roma, Rome, and therefore use the same form as the genitive and dative: Romae, at Rome, and Hiberniae, in Ireland. A few place-names were inherently plural, even though they are a single city, e.g. Athēnae, Athens and Cūmae, Cuma. These plural names also use the form similar to the dative and ablative: Athēnīs, at Athens, and Cūmīs, at Cumae. There are also a number of second declension names that could have locatives, e.g. Brundisium, Brindisi; Eborācum, York; with locatives Brundisiī, at Brindisi; Eborācī, at York. The locative cannot express being located at multiple locations; plural forms only exist because certain proper names such as Athēnae happen to be plural. "He is at home" can be expressed by "(is) domi est" using the locative, but "They are at their (individual and separate) homes" cannot be expressed by the locative.
Greek In Ancient Greek, the locative merged with the Proto-Indo-European dative, so that the Greek dative represents the Proto-Indo-European dative, instrumental, and locative. The dative with the preposition ἐν en "in" and the dative of time (e.g., τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ, tēî trítēi hēmérāi, which means "on the third day") are examples of locative datives. Some early texts, in particular Homer, retain the locative in some words (for example ἠῶθεν, ēôthen – at dawn, Iliad 24.401).
Germanic languages The locative case had merged with the dative in early Germanic times and was no longer distinct in Proto-Germanic or in any of its descendants. The dative, however, contrasts with the accusative case, which is used to indicate motion toward a place (it has an allative meaning). The difference in meaning between dative and accusative exists in all of the old Germanic languages and survives in all Germanic languages that retain a distinction between the two cases.
Sanskrit The locative case in Sanskrit is usually known as the "seventh case" (saptami vibhakti). It is the last out of the main seven cases (vibkhatis) in the language. Along with "in", "on", "at", "or", and "by", the locative case is also generally used with "among" in Sanskrit.
Slavic languages Among Slavic languages, the locative is mostly used after a fixed set of commonly used prepositions. Besides location, Slavic languages also employ locative as a way of expressing the method of doing an action, time when the action is to take place, as well as the topic or theme that something describes in more detail; as such it is subordinate to other cases. The locative is kept in all Slavic languages (except for Bulgarian and Macedonian), although Russian split it (in the singular of a group of masculine nouns and in a few 3rd-declension feminines such as дверь) into locative and prepositional, and Serbo-Croatian uses almost the same set of endings (sometimes with different intonation) as for the dative. The ending depends on whether the word is a noun or an adjective (among other factors).
Old Slavic In Old Church Slavonic, the locative is mostly used with a preposition. Some uses of independent locatives remain, mostly in expressions of time, such as zimě "in winter", polu nošti "at midnight". The locative also occurs as the complement of a handful of verbs, such as kŭto prikosnǫ sę rizaxŭ moixŭ? "who touched my garments?". In Old East Slavic, moreover, place names are regularly used in the locative without a preposition.
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