Instrumental case

In grammar, the instrumental case (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the "instrument" or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. The noun may be either a physical object or an abstract concept.
General discussion.
The instrumental case appears in this Russian sentence:
Here, the inflection of the noun indicates its instrumental rolethe nominative "перо" changes its ending to become "пером".
Modern English expresses the instrumental meaning by use of adverbial phrases that begin with the words "with", "by", or "using" then followed by the noun indicating the "instrument":
Technical descriptions often use the phrase "by means of", which is similar to "by use of", as in:
This can be replaced by "via", which is a Latin ablative of the nominative (viā) "via", meaning road, route, or way. In the ablative this means "by way of".
The instrumental case appears in Old English, Old Saxon, Georgian, Armenian, Basque, Sanskrit, and the Balto-Slavic languages. An instrumental/comitative case is arguably present in Turkish as well as in Tamil. Also, Uralic languages reuse the adessive case where available, locative case if not, to mark the same category, or comitative case (Estonian). For example, the Finnish "kirjoitan kynällä" does not mean "I write on a pen", but "I write using a pen", even if the adessive "-llä" is used. In Ob-Ugric languages, the same category may also mark agents with verbs that use an ergative alignment, like "I give you, using a pen".
The instrumental case is notably used in Russian, where the case is called "творительный падеж (tvoritel'nyj padež)" though similar usages also can be found in other Balto-Slavic languages. In most declension paradigms, the instrumental case in Russian can generally be distinguished by the -ом ("-om") suffix for most masculine and neuter nouns, the -ою/-oй ("-oju"/"-oj") suffix for most feminine nouns and -ами ("-ami") for any of the three genders in the plural.
Just as in English the preposition "with" can express instrumental ("using, by means of"), comitative ("in the company of"), and a number of other semantic relations, the instrumental case in Russian is not limited to its instrumental thematic role. It is also used to denote:
The Russian instrumental case is also used with verbs of use and control (to own, to manage, to abuse, to rule, to possess, etc.), attitude (to be proud of, to threaten (with), to value, to be interested (in), to admire, to be obsessed (with), etc.), reciprocal action (to share, to exchange), and some other verbs.
Though the instrumental case does not exist in many languages, some languages use other cases to denote the means, or instrument, of an action. In Classical Greek, for example, the dative case is used as the instrumental case. This can be seen in the sentence "," or "..me ktenei dolôi" (Book IX, line 407 of the Odyssey), which means "he kills me with a bait". Here, "," the dative of "δόλος" ("dolos" – a bait) is used as the instrumental case (the means or instrument here is, obviously, the bait). In Latin the instrumental case has merged with the ablative, thus the ablative case has the same functions. For example, "ipso facto" can be translated as "by the fact itself", while "oculīs vidēre" means "to see with one's eyes".
In Modern English, the word "why" is one instance of an etymologically instrumental declension. Though not commonly known to be of pronominal origin, it was, in fact, inherited from Old English "hwȳ", which was the declension of "hwæt" (now "what") in the Old English instrumental casea grammatical feature rare even in Old English. The modern instrumental case (as present in "why") does not bear the meaning of instrument, but of purpose, cause, or reason: rather, the closely related form "how" is used to express instrument, way, or means.
Indo-European languages.
Sanskrit.
The instrumental case in Classical Sanskrit can have several meanings:
Assamese.
In Standard Assamese (এ)ৰে "(e)re" indicates the instrumental case. (এ)দি "(e)di" does the job in some dialects.
Ancient Greek.
The functions of the Proto-Indo-European instrumental case were taken over by the dative, so that the Greek dative has functions belonging to the Proto-Indo-European dative, instrumental, and locative. This is the case with the bare dative, and the dative with the preposition σύν "sýn" "with". It is possible, however, that Mycenean Greek had the instrumental case, which was later replaced by dative in all the Greek dialects.
German.
While Old High German possessed a rudimentary instrumental case, its function was replaced with the dative in Middle High German, comparable with English and Ancient Greek, with a construction of "mit" (with) + dative clause (in English, the objective case is used). For example:
"Hans schrieb mit einem Stifte*."
"*the German dative -e is not used in most common conversation; it is only used here for a better demonstration."
Czech.
Just as above, the object with which the action is done or completed is declined. For example:
Armenian.
The instrumental in Armenian is denoted by the -ով (-ov) suffix to say that an action is done by, with or through an agent.
While the instrumental case is the form most commonly used for this purpose, when coupled with the passive voice in Armenian the instrumental case can be replaced with the ablative case.
Serbo-Croatian.
Instrumental in the Serbo-Croatian language group is usually used to denote a noun with which the action is done, e.g. "Idem "autom"" - "I'm going by means of a car", "Jedem "vilicom/viljuškom"" - "I eat with a fork", "Prenosi se "zrakom/vazduhom"" - "It's transferred through air", "Prožeta je "bijesom"" - "She's consumed by anger". The instrumental preposition "s(a)", meaning "with", is supposed to be dropped in this usage, but it is often kept in casual speech when talking about objects in usage such as a pen, a hammer, etc.
Instrumental can also denote company, in which case "s(a)" is mandatory, e.g. "Pričali smo "sa svima"" - "We talked with everyone", "Došao je "s roditeljima"" - "He came with his parents", "Šetala se "sa psom"" - "She was taking a walk with her dog". Dropping "s(a)" in this case would either make the sentences incorrect, or change their meaning entirely because dative, locative and instrumental share the same form in the plural, so the examples "Pričali smo "svima"" i "Došao je "roditeljima"" would come to mean "We told everyone" and "He came to his parents".
Instrumental is also used with certain spatial prepositions like "među" (between), "nad" (above), "pod" (underneath), "pred" (in front of) and "za" (after). Note the difference between these prepositions and similar ones used for genitive with an -i suffix: "između", "iznad", "ispod", "ispred" and "iza".
Instrumental is used without proposition to denote travelling through an area: "Putujem "zemljom"" - "I'm travelling the country", "Hodam "plažom"" - "I'm walking along a beach", etc.
It can also be used to show how long or when in a larger scope of time something happened: "Nema ih "godinama"" - "They haven't come in years", ""S vremenom" će proći" - "It will pass in time", "Jednom "tjednom"" - "Once a week", etc.
Baltic - Latvian.
The instrumental case in Latvian declension (One of the three Baltic languages that also include Lithuanian, and Old Prussian and can have several meanings:
Uralic.
Hungarian.
The instrumental case is present in the Hungarian language, where it serves several purposes. The main purpose is the same as the above, i.e. the means with which an action occurs. It has a role in the "-(t)at-" causative form of verbs, that is, the form of a verb that shows the subject caused someone else to action the verb. In this sense, the instrumental case is used to mark the person that was caused to execute the action expressed by the verb. It is also used to quantify or qualify words such as 'better' or 'ago', such as "sokkal jobban" 'much better' (literally 'with-much better'); "hét évvel ezelőtt" 'seven years ago' (literally 'seven with-years before this').
In Hungarian the instrumental and comitative case look the same, see Instrumental-comitative case.
See the links section below for a more detailed article.
Finnish.
Finnish has a historic, marginal instructive case ("-n"), but in practice the adessive case ("-lla/-llä") is used instead outside lexicalised fixed expressions, even though the adessive literally means 'on top', e.g. "vasaralla" 'using a hammer' (instrumental meaning) or 'on a hammer' (locative meaning). ("Vasaroin" 'using hammers' is plausible and understandable, but not common in use.)
Uto-Aztecan.
Nahuatl.
Nahuatl uses the suffix "-tica" to indicate the instrumental case.
For example, in the sentence "ātlān ācaltica in huāllahqueh" 'they came on the water by boat', "ācalli" means 'boat' and "ācaltica" means 'by (use of a) boat'.
Turkic.
Turkish.
Turkish uses the conjunction "ile" ("with"), and its suffixed form "-(y)lA" (realised as "-(y)la" or "-(y)le", depending on the dominant vowel of the noun—see vowel harmony) to indicate the instrumental case. For example, in the sentence "Arabayla geldi" 'he came by (the use of a) car', "araba" means 'car' and "arabayla" means 'by (the use of a) car, with a car'.
The original Proto-Turkic instrumental case suffix was "-n", which is less productive today but is preserved in common words like "yazın" ("during the summer"), "kışın" ("during the winter"), "öğlen" ("at noon"), and "yayan" ("by foot", "on foot"). It became less productive in most Oghuz Turkic languages. The conjunction "ile" ("with") in Turkish has semantically expanded to fill the gap ("kürek ile" or "kürekle", meaning "with the shovel" > "using the shovel"), being used as an instrumental marker, and the suffix "-(y)lA" ("-le", "-la", "-yle", "-yla") is a form of "ile" which has been grammaticalized into an agglutinative suffix as a result of quick speech, becoming an enclitic.
Japanese.
In Japanese, the post-positional particle で "de" indicates the instrumental case.
Northeast Caucasian.
Vainakhish.
The instrumental in the North Caucasian language Vainakhish is denoted by the -ца / -аца / -ица (-tsa / -atsa / -itsa) suffix to describes an action which is done with an agent:
The nominative "Baham" changes its ending to become "Bahamitsa":