Editing Comitative case (section)

==Comparison to similar cases==

The comitative case is often conflated or confused with other similar cases, especially the [[instrumental case]] and the [[associative case]].

The comitative relates to an accompanier and a companion, and the instrumental relates to an [[agent (grammar)|agent]], an [[object (grammar)|object]], and a [[patient (grammar)|patient]].<ref name=Narrog>{{cite book|last=Narrog|first=Heiko|title=The Oxford Handbook of Case|year=2009|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press Inc.|chapter=Varieties of Instrumental|editor-first1=Andrej |editor-last1=Malchukov |editor-first2=Andrew |editor-last2=Spencer|pages=601–608}}</ref>{{rp|593}} Enrique Palancar defines the role of Instrumental case as <nowiki>'the role played by the object the Agent manipulates to achieve a change of state of the Patient.'</nowiki><ref>{{cite journal|last=Palancar|first=E. L.|year=1999|title=Instrumental Prefixes in Amerindian Languages: An Overview to their Meanings, Origin, and Functions|journal=Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung|volume=52|pages=151–166}}</ref> Even though the difference is straightforward, because the instrumental and the comitative are expressed the same way in many languages, including [[English language|English]], it is often difficult to separate them.

Russian is one of many languages that differentiate morphologically between instrumental and comitative:

{{fs interlinear|indent=3|lang=ru
|Я пойду в кино с мамой
|Ya poydu v kino s mamoy
|I go in cinema with mom.COM
|'I'll go to the cinema with my mom.'}}

{{fs interlinear|indent=3|lang=ru|abbreviations=INSTR:instrumental case
|Я нарезал хлеб этим ножом
|Ya narezal khleb etim nozhom
|I cut bread this.INSTR knife.INSTR
|'I cut the bread with this knife.'<ref name=Heine&Kuteva />}}

In Russian, the comitative is marked by adding a preposition {{lang|ru|с}} and by declining the companion in the instrumental case; the design {{lang|ru|с мамой}} as a whole becomes comitative. In the instrumental case, the object is declined, but no preposition is added.<ref name=Heine&Kuteva>{{cite book|last1=Heine|last2=Kuteva|first1=Bernd|first2=Tania|title=The Changing Languages of Europe|year=2006|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press |page=188}}</ref>

The comitative case is often confused with the associative case. Before the term comitative was applied to the accompanier-companion relationship, the relationship was often called associative case, a term still used by some linguists.<ref>{{cite book|last=Haspelmath|first=Martin|title=The Oxford Handbook of Case|year=2009|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press |editor-first1=Andrej |editor-last1=Malchukov |editor-first2=Andrew |editor-last2=Spencer|chapter=Terminology of Case|pages=514}}</ref>

It is important to distinguish between the comitative and the associative because the associative also refers to a specific variety of the comitative case that is used in Hungarian.<ref name=Stolz2009 />{{rp|605}}