Tamil case

The Tamil case system is analyzed in native and missionary grammars as consisting of a finite number of cases. The usual treatment of Tamil case (Arden 1942) is one where there are seven cases—the nominative (first case), accusative (second case), instrumental (third), dative (fourth), ablative (fifth), genitive (sixth), and locative (seventh). In traditional analyses there is always a clear distinction made between postpositional morphemes and case endings. The vocative is sometimes given a place in the case system as an eighth case, although vocative forms do not participate in usual morphophonemic alternations, nor do they govern the use of any postpositions.

Tamil	English	Significance	Usual Suffixes
First case	Nominative	Subject of sentence	[Zero]
Second case	Accusative	Object of action	-ai
Third case	Instrumental, Social	Means by which action is done (Instrumental), Association, or means by which action is done (Social)	-al, -out
Fourth case	Dative	Object to whom action is performed, Object for whom action is performed	(u)kku,(u)kkàka
Fifth case	Ablative of motion from	Motion from an animate/inanimate object	-il, -ininru, -iliruntu, -iruntu, -itattiliruntu
Sixth case	Genitive	Possessive	[Zero], -in, -utaiya, -inutaiya
Seventh case	Locative	Place in which, On the person of (animate) in the presence of	-il,itam
Eighth case	Vocative	Addressing, calling	e, a