Abstract

The word ptôsis was the technical term for the grammatical cases in Greek linguistic treatises. Its literal translation is ‘falling down’, from the verb píptein ‘to fall’. Similarly, its Lat. calque casus derives from the verb cadere ‘to fall’. The metaphor stuck and invited the question where the cases actually fall from. In the Peripatetic tradition it was maintained that the other cases fall from the nominative, hence the nominative was den…