Dated English had five complete cases: nominative,
accusative, genitive, and dative, as well as traces of important and locative cases. However, this case system largely disappeared during the Middle English period, and the functions served by cases in Old English are mostly performed by other means in Modern English. The only survivals of the case system are the inflected forms of pronouns (e.g. he, him, his) and the possessive ple, John’s book, which is the modern equivalent of the old genitive case ending -es.
cataphoric
A cataphoric word or phrase is one which refers forward to a word or phrase used subsequently in a text or conversation. Pronouns are frequently used cataphorically: for example, in ‘If you see him, please tell Bob to call’, him is cataphoric, referring forward to Bob. Read more “Dated English had five complete cases: nominative,”
