title: Accusative absolute
text: # Accusative absolute
  
  The accusative absolute is a grammatical construction found in some languages. It is an absolute construction found in the accusative case.
  
  ## Greek
  
  In ancient Greek, the accusative case is used adverbially with participles of impersonal verbs, similarly to the genitive absolute. For example:
  
  συνδόξαν
  
  sundóxan
  
  seeming good-ACC
  
  τῷ
  
  tôi
  
  the-MASC.DAT.SG
  
  πατρὶ
  
  patrì
  
  father-DAT
  
  καὶ
  
  kaì
  
  and
  
  τῇ
  
  têi
  
  the-FEM.DAT.SG
  
  μητρὶ
  
  mētrì
  
  mother-DAT
  
  γαμεῖ
  
  gameî
  
  marries
  
  τὴν
  
  tḕn
  
  the-FEM.ACC.SG
  
  Κυαξάρου
  
  Kuaxárou
  
  Cyaxares-gen
  
  θυγατέρα
  
  thugatéra
  
  daughter-ACC
  
  συνδόξαν τῷ πατρὶ καὶ τῇ μητρὶ γαμεῖ τὴν Κυαξάρου θυγατέρα
  
  sundóxan tôi patrì kaì têi mētrì gameî tḕn Kuaxárou thugatéra
  
  {seeming good-ACC} the-MASC.DAT.SG father-DAT and the-FEM.DAT.SG mother-DAT marries the-FEM.ACC.SG Cyaxares-gen daughter-ACC
  
  "It seeming good to his father and mother, he marries the daughter of Cyaxares." (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.5.28)
  
  ## German
  
  In German, a noun phrase can be put in the accusative to indicate that the sentence's subject has the property it describes. For example:
  
  Neben
  
  next to
  
  ihm
  
  him
  
  saß
  
  sat
  
  der
  
  the
  
  dünnhaarige
  
  thin-haired
  
  Pianist,
  
  pianist
  
  den
  
  the-MASC.ACC.SG
  
  Kopf
  
  head
  
  im
  
  in the
  
  Nacken,
  
  neck
  
  und
  
  and
  
  lauschte.
  
  listened
  
  Neben ihm saß der dünnhaarige Pianist, den Kopf im Nacken, und lauschte.
  
  {next to} him sat the thin-haired pianist the-MASC.ACC.SG head {in the} neck and listened
  
  "The thin-haired pianist, his head back (lit. his head in his neck), sat next to him and listened."
  
  ## Latin
  
  The accusative absolute is sometimes found in place of the ablative absolute in the Latin of Late Antiquity as, for example, in the writings of Gregory of Tours and Jordanes. This likely arose when the pronunciations of the ablative and accusative singulars merged, since the final -m of the accusative singular was no longer pronounced, having been fading since the Classical era. The accusative absolute is also found with plural nouns whose ablative and accusative are not similar in pronunciation.
  
  ## Sources
  
  * ↑ Balme, Maurice and Gilbert Lawall. Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. pp 172.
  * ↑ Duden 4, Die Grammatik, 5th edition (1995), p. 624
  