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: () () () () () () () Dative ... 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: () () () () () () () 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: () () () () () () () () Gender system There are three grammatical genders in Colognian: masculine, feminine, and neuter gender. Most nouns have fixed gender, but there is a class of nouns that can switch from predominantly neuter to feminine on certain occasions. Colognian shares this phenomenon with a large group of local and vernacular languages almost along the entire river Rhine. Very few nouns have an unclear gender. Masculine Feminine Neuter Natural gender Natural gender plays only a