... case applies not only to nouns but to a whole noun phrase and may be shown by nouns , adjectives and determiners . Cases ... verbs take ( or ' govern ' ) an accusative object , others a dative ; in Basque intransitive verb ' subjects ... * Examines how language works, accounting for its nature, its use, its study and its history * Two comprehensive indexes of Topics and Technical Terms, and Names * Carefully illustrated to explain key points in the text `This rich repository of information on all aspects of language is a must for all libraries in higher education, schools and larger public libraries.' - Library Review `Each article has an excellent bibliography. In addition, there are comprehensive indexes of topics and technical terms and names. Highly recommended for all college and general public libraries.' - Choice `This important book is in many ways a state-of-the -art survey of current conceptions of, and approaches to, language, with generous references to more detailed sources. Each chapter has a good bibliograph

roles in a specific language. In addition to its inventory of structural cases, case theory includes a series of lexical cases that are assigned at deep Case roles, according to the work by Charles J. Fillmore (1967), are the semantic roles of noun phrases (NP) in relation to the syntactic structures that contain these noun phrases. The term case role is most widely used for purely semantic relations, including theta roles and thematic roles, that can be independent of the morpho-syntax. The concept of case roles is related to the larger notion of Case assignment The typological differences among languages have been shown to be the consequence of differences in whether ergative, dative, or other individual case assignment is optional or obligatory in a language (although, the ergative-accusative case pattern appears to be universally blocked). The class of verbs that mark their subjects with a particular lexical dative case is similar across languages, but the inclusion in this verb class is not completely predictable. Lexical cases such as nominative usually mark predictable theta roles, but there is a substantial amount of characteristic behaviour involved indicating that a verb's ability to assign a lexical case to one of its arguments must be specified in that verb's lexical entry. Once a verb marks its subject with a given lexical case, such as nominative, that verb cannot assign the structural accusative case to its object.

Similar to the varieties spoken by other linguistic minorities in Italy, the varieties of Croatian spoken in the Molise region have for centuries coexisted with the Romance varieties. There are three bilingual localities in the Molise region (Acquaviva Collecroce, San Felice del Molise and Montemitro) whose inhabitants use their original dialect after living in the Italian-speaking surroundings for five centuries. During its long coexistence with the Romance varieties, the Molise Croatian dialect has undergone numerous changes that have strongly affected its system on various linguistic levels (for instance, the loss of the neuter gender and the loss of some vocative case forms). All Molise Croats are bilingual since early childhood. Many five-year-olds speak Italian as their mother tongue and know only some Molise Croatian words, without knowing grammar and syntax. The linguistic situation is characterised by absolute language contact in which the borrowings from the adstrate and superstrate Romance varieties are so numerous that the Molise Croatian linguistic community is threatened with extinction. In this perspective of language decay we will try to examine the changes of the morphological features of the cases and verb phrase modified by indirect object in an oblique case (genitive, dative and instrumental case). The direct and the indirect object are noun phrases which are a part of a verb phrase, i.e. they are complements required by the thematic structure of the verb.