Nominative

Nominative is the basic form of nouns, etc. It is used to mark the subject or agent in a clause, the verb of which is in the active voice. It marks the subject or patient in a clause, the verb of which is in the passive voice.

Genitive

The two variants of the genitive are compounds. They both contain declined forms identical to dative, plus additional elements. Genitives can only be used in conjunction with another noun, to which they refer. One genitive form in standard word order requires that noun to precede the genitive compound, while the other genitive form is required to follow the noun it refers to. Genitives express a stronger or weaker kind of possession, ownership, or belonging-to.

• Examples:^[1]
  • däm Päul sing Sofa (Paul's sofa)
  • dat Sofa vum Pitter (Peter's sofa)
  • däm Marie sing Sofa (Mary's sofa)
  • dä Tant Marie iehr lila Hötche (Auntie Mary's little purple hat)
  • dat Jeseech vun dä Frau Schmitz (Mrs. Smith's face)
  • ene Fläsch ehre Ring (a bottle's ring, the ring of a bottle)
  • et Föttche vun enem Pöttche (the rear side of a mug or jar or little pot or potty)

Dative

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Accusative

The accusative marks the direct object of a transitive verb in a transitive sentence.

The accusative is also governed by some prepositions, and by some prepositions in conjunction with specific verb classes, which means that independent of other grammatical contexts, these prepositions make the referenced noun use the accusative form.

There is a class of adverbial expressions most often telling a time of an action or the place of a movement employing the accusative case. They always have an equivalent expression using a preposition + accusative.

Accusative forms in Colognian grammar are in all instances identical to their corresponding nominative forms. Where needed, potential ambiguities are reduced by prosodic elements of speech, but are extremely rare, since Colognian unlike elsewhere follows a strict subject–predicate–object (SPO) word order for transitive sentences in active and reflexive voices and predicate–subject–object (PSO) for questions. This makes it very distinct from German, where word order is more flexible. Because direct objects cannot occur in the passive voice, the accusative does not occur in passive sentences.

• Examples:^[1]
  • däm Päul sing Sofa (Paul's sofa)
  • dat Sofa vum Pitter (Peter's sofa)
  • däm Marie sing Sofa (Mary's sofa)
  • dä Tant Marie iehr lila Hötche (Auntie Mary's little purple hat)
  • dat Jeseech vun dä Frau Schmitz (Mrs. Smith's face)
  • ene Fläsch ehre Ring (a bottles ring, the ring of a bottle)
  • et Föttche vun enem Pöttche (the rear side of a mug or jar or little pot or potty)

Vocative

It could be argued that Colognian has a vocative, the forms of which is identical to the nominative with the articles stripped off. Most commonly, this case is seen as a part of the nominative. Since wishes can be expressed using vocative + imperative, this case is applicable to almost any noun and noun expression. Also, few specific verbs can require an object to use the vocative case.

• Examples:^[1]
  • Marie (Mary)
  • Köbes (waiter, keeper, Jacob)
  • Mamm (mum, mama, mother)
  • leev Bröck (dear bridge)
  • Pääd (horse)
  • mi Levve (my life)
  • do fies Knöllche (you bloody notice of a due payment for an observed traffic offense)
  • ich heißen Antunn (I am called Anthony)

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

Natural gender

Natural gender plays only a small role in Colognian grammar. While male persons or living beings customarily are referred to with the masculine gender, females are generally referred to using the neuter gender, with some exceptions mentioned below. However, if a person or animal is named or nicknamed with a meaningful Colognian noun, which is not uncommon, the noun's gender is used to determine articles accompanying the name, but otherwise the person's natural gender is used.

Neuter-feminine gender switching

Unclear gender

There are very few Colognian nouns of unclear grammatical gender, which have therefore been used with varying gender. This may apply to neologisms for some time until a certain gender evolves for them.

Number in declension

The singular is always used when there is exactly one instance of something or occasionally, depending on the ways such figures are expressed, with magnitudes having a "one" at their end, such as 1,001. The plural is used in all other cases, except with zero. Depending on the context and the noun, the singular or the plural is used with zero; sometimes either can be used, but most often, Colognian speakers choose their wording to avoid expressions of the type "zero + noun." ...

Number in conjugation

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Number in syntax

Singular

Singular is always used, when there is exactly one instance of something, or occasionally, depending on the ways, such figures are expressed, with magnitudes having a "one" at their end, such as 1001.

Plural

Plural is used for anything else but zero.

Zero

Depending on context and the noun, singular or plural is used with zero instances. Some nouns allow only one of them, other nouns allow that either can be chosen arbitrarily. Yet the actual choice then usually depends on aesthetic aspects of the sentence. Generally, this has little impact since most often Colognian speakers prefer wordings avoiding expressions ususing zero as a count.

Voices

Colognian conjugation has the voices: active and passive. Also, there is the reflexive which combines middle voice and mediopassive.