Associative case


The associative case is a grammatical case which expresses associativity which is, although related, not identical to comitativity, which is expressed by using the comitative case.
Associativity is a grammatical category which expresses the meaning "X and the group associated with X", where X is a nominal, typically of human reference. An example is the Hungarian János-ék meaning "John and associates / John and his group / John and them", or the Japanese Tanaka-tachi meaning "Tanaka and associates / Tanaka and his group / Tanaka and them".
Associations in English can be identified by words such as with, or along with. Another name for this is Instrumental Case. Instrumental Case, in the past--has been identified as 'means by which', in that it expresses the notion of means by which an action was done.