"There are ideas which express complete significance, and others, which have either relative significance , or, which need to join another to express together a complete idea. For example, we can say: a ripe fruit is a good thing and the significance is complete. But, if we want to say: the fruit of the tree is good for that thing, we may not have one word for "the fruit of that tree", nor an adjective to say good for that thing. To render these two ideas, we need a means to link the name of that tree to that of the fruit, and the name of that thing to the word, good.

There are languages which fulfill this function as they mark number and gender. There are called declensions, i.e., by means of certain changes in the desinence called, case. They indicate some of the rapports of nouns and adjectives. Most of the languages do not have case forms, or they have very few of them, but the number of rapports that an idea can have with another are numerous. Thus, the case forms can express only some of the principal rapports. For example, the genitive would indicate the rapport of generation and belonging, the dative, that of affirmation (my addition)/attribution and donation, the accusative, that of the tendency of dependence etc., but this does not suffice. Thus, several languages have, for this purpose, distinct words, along with case forms, which are used to establish specific rapports between different elements of the discourse." (pp. 84-85)

Source: Harjeet Singh Gill (ed.): The Semiotics of Creative Process in Language and Literature. Patiala: Department of Anthropological linguistics, Punjabi University, 1983.

National Library of India, Belvedere, Kolkata, India.