Mastering the Accusative Case and the Direct Object

If you’ve heard of the direct object, you’re already familiar with the accusative case.

Learning about grammatical cases like the accusative case in more detail is optional. It can, however, help you understand sentence structure in English more clearly, which will boost your confidence when speaking.

Read on as we discuss the accusative case in this simple-to-follow overview. You’ll discover how to use the accusative case in regular sentences, in the passive voice, and after certain phrasal verbs. We’ll also discuss the differences between the accusative case and other grammatical cases.

You’ll come away more confident after reading through all the accusative case examples in this article.

What is the accusative case?

Similar to how verb tenses tell us when an action occurs and if it’s still ongoing, grammatical cases define the role of nouns in a sentence and their relationship to one another.

The accusative case is a grammatical case that defines a noun in a sentence as the direct object. There’s also the nominative case, which tells us a noun is the subjectof a sentence, and the dative case, which refers to the indirect object.

Sentence structure and grammatical cases

Let’s quickly recap English sentence structure to better understand case grammar.

A basic English sentence is made up of a subject and a verb in the appropriate tense, as shown in the table below.

If you need a brief overview of verb conjugation in English, check our detailed guide to mastering English tenses.

Some verbs, like the ones in the examples above, can be used on their own – they only require the action to be completed by the subject. These are called intransitive verbs.

Transitive verbs, on the other hand, require a direct object to act on, in addition to the subject that does the action. Take a look at the example sentence below:

Our neighbor borrowed the grill.

In the above sentence, the noun the grill is the direct object. You cannot simply state, “Our neighbor borrowed.” You must say what was borrowed.

Many verbs in English require a direct object. Some verbs can also be used both with or without a direct object.

Take a look at more examples of transitive verbs and their direct objects:

Let’s examine the problem.
The baker prepared a beautiful cake.
We’ll have the pasta with salad.

The noun in bold – the direct object – receives the action of the underlined verb.

The accusative case and the direct object

The accusative case, also known as the object case, helps us identify the direct object in a sentence.

Unlike other languages that use specific markers to identify the role of nouns in sentences, English nouns don’t have any specific features that tell whether they are in the nominative case, the accusative case or the dative case. You’ll simply need to examine the sentence and determine which noun is performing the action and which is receiving the action.

Let’s look at another example:

She added pineapple to the pizza.

Can you identify the direct object in the above sentence?

Start with the action being performed: added
Who is performing the action? She
What noun receives the action? pineapple

The direct object is pineapple since it directly receives the action of the verb.

You can find the direct object of any sentence by asking the question; “What is receiving the action of the verb?”

We ordered some new notebooks from Amazon.
What was ordered? – some new notebooks

My parents cooked a large turkey on Thanksgiving.
What was cooked? – a large turkey

Another way to identify the direct object in a sentence is to rely on word order. In English, the direct object typically comes after the verb. The following sentences use the standard English word order of subject-verb-object:

Subject | Verb | Direct Object
Koalas | climb | trees.
I | forgot | the keys
The hurricane | destroyed | the house.

Relying on sentence order will not always work. Here are some examples where the word order might differ. Notice the position of the underlined direct object in the sentence:

Did you hear? It was a car that they stole last night.
Children are given a vacation every summer by their schools.
They called the wedding off at the last moment!

The more you familiarize yourself with the accusative case, the easier it will be to identify the noun that functions as the direct object in a sentence.

If you need a refresher, here’s our breakdown of the eight basic parts of speech in English, including nouns and verbs.

The accusative case and object pronouns Nouns in the accusative case can be replaced by a category of personal pronouns called object pronouns. Here’s a list of the English object pronouns:

• me
• you
• him
• her
• it
• us
• them

Using object pronouns makes it easier to identify the direct object in a sentence since the object pronouns used in the accusative case are different from the subject pronouns used in the nominative case (we’ll discuss this in more detail below). Look at these example sentences:

The sales department calculated our profits for the last quarter. They presented them at the last meeting.

The president delivered his annual speech in front of 40 million viewers. I heard he prepared it in less than two hours.

In both examples, the noun in the first sentence is replaced by an object pronoun in the second sentence to avoid repetition.

By learning to identify the direct object in a sentence, it will become easier for you to use the correct pronouns.

Remember, when replacing nouns with pronouns, make sure the pronoun agrees in grammatical person, number and gender with the noun it’s replacing. Let’s take a look at the sentence below:

Let’s organize the folders before the meeting.

The noun ‘the folders’ is in the third person plural, which means we replace this noun with the object pronoun them:

Let’s organize the folders before the meeting. I’ll collect them and we can go through them together.

Uses of the accusative case

As you can see, understanding the accusative case helps to a) distinguish the direct object from the subject (important for verb conjugation) and b) use the correct pronouns to avoid repetition.

Accusative case grammar also comes in handy when forming sentences in the passive voice and while using phrasal verbs.

The accusative case and the passive voice

The passive voice doesn’t follow the traditional subject-verb-object sentence structure. Rather, it puts the direct object into focus either because we don’t know who performs the action or because we want to focus on who or what is receiving the action rather than the person or thing doing the action.

Learning to define the direct object makes it easier to create passive voice sentences:

• They stole my car! (active voice)
• My car was stolen. (passive voice)
• It was stolen in the middle of the night (passive voice with object pronoun it).

Since in English we mostly use the active voice, you can use the accusative case to change a sentence from the passive voice to the active voice:

This necklace had been purchased by my mother 20 years ago. (passive voice)
My mother had purchased this necklace 20 years ago. (active voice)

Not sure how to use passive voice? Click on our article on when (and when not) to use the passive voice in English.

The accusative case and phrasal verbs

The direct object also plays an important role when using some phrasal verbs.

Phrasal verbs are verbs with two or three words that come together to form a specific meaning. They’re made up of a verb and a particle. (A particle is a short word like on, off, up, down, in, or out.) Some examples of phrasal verbs are look up, call off, and put up with.

Like typical verbs, phrasal verbs can stand on their own (intransitive), or they might require a direct object (transitive).

With transitive phrasal verbs, you can place the direct object right after the verb and its particles. In the following examples, the phrasal verb is in bold, while the direct object is underlined.

• She has to look up the definition of the word in the dictionary.
• We called off the party due to the bad weather.
• The workers couldn’t put up with their manager’s rude behavior.

There are also phrasal verbs that can be split, meaning the direct object can be placed between the verb and its particle. It’s necessary to split some phrasal verbs when using an object pronoun in place of a noun.

We should take off our shoes before entering the house.

We should take our shoes off before entering the house.

We should take themoff before entering the house.

Don’t say: We should take off them before entering the house.

Note that only phrasal verbs that have two words can be split. Three-word phrasal verbs cannot be split.

Since English speakers often use phrasal verbs, it’s helpful to become familiar with them, especially with the placement of the direct object when using these types of verbs.

Check out this extensive list of common phrasal verbs in English to see more examples.

The accusative case and other grammatical cases

As we mentioned above, grammatical cases are used to define the role of nouns and their relationship to one another within a sentence. Let’s take a look at how the accusative works in combination with the other two cases.

Nominative and accusative case

Most sentences will have a subject and a direct object. The subject of the sentence follows the rules of the nominative case, whereas the direct object follows the accusative case.

Again, there aren’t any specific markings to show that a noun is the subject of the sentence and that another noun is the direct object. Rather, the roles are made clear through word order, pronouns, and by simply thinking about who is performing the action and who is receiving the action.

Here are two sentences to illustrate this:

George and Penny should have gotten the gifts by now.

They should have gotten them by now.

Because we can identify the subject and the direct object in the first sentence, we’re able to replace each noun with its corresponding pronoun in the second sentence.

The table below shows the English subject pronouns and object pronouns. Subject pronouns can be the subject of a sentence, while object pronouns can be the direct object.

Accusative and dative case

Nouns in the accusative case (direct objects) are sometimes followed by a noun that is affected by the direct object. These are called indirect objects, and they obey the rules of the dative case.

The indirect object typically appears between the verb and the direct object. It may sometimes come after the direct object, accompanied by the prepositions to or for.

In the examples below, the direct object is in bold, while the indirect object is underlined.

The supermarket delivered our groceries to us earlier today.

Don’t forget to send the whole team a copy of the final report.

The plumber won’t be able to send a quote to you today.

I told him the truth about our plans.

Note: Both the direct object and the indirect object can be replaced by object pronouns, as in the following example:

A: Here’s the dress I’m wearing to the wedding!
B: Wow. You have to showit to Jennifer.
A: I’ve already shown it to her.

The accusative case in a nutshell

When communicating, it’s always best to express our ideas clearly and concisely. Understanding grammatical cases helps us do this.

The accusative case allows us to define a noun as the direct object in a sentence. Most sentences will contain a direct object since many common English verbs are transitive and require one. We’re able to identify the direct object either through the object pronoun, its position in the sentence – which is often after the verb – or by simply asking what noun is receiving the action of the verb.

Learning to identify the role of the noun in a sentence as either the subject or the object through case grammar helps us to create clearer sentences, use the passive voice and phrasal verbs properly, and choose the correct pronouns to replace nouns.

If you need a bit more practice with the accusative case, make sure to review the accusative case examples above a few times. The next time you’re writing something in English, see if you can identify each noun and its role in the sentence.