CASE (redirected from case abstract)

case, in language, one of the several possible forms of a given noun, pronoun, or adjective that indicates its grammatical function (see inflection); in inflected languages it is usually indicated by a series of suffixes attached to a stem, as in Latin amicus, "friend" (nominative); amicum (accusative); amici (genitive); and amico (ablative and dative). In modern English, nouns are marked for two cases—common or nominative (e.g., man) and possessive or genitive (man's). A few pronouns are marked for three—nominative (e.g., he), objective or accusative (him), and possessive (his). Old English also inflected for accusative, dative, and sometimes instrumental, cases. In Latin, six cases are indicated by changes in inflection—nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, and vocative. The hypothetical ancestor of the Indo-European languages used eight cases, the above six plus the instrumental and locative cases. The Altaic and Finno-Ugric language families also use case-marking systems. German uses four cases, Russian six, Finnish sixteen. In Europe, the concept was first introduced by the Greeks, although Sanskrit grammarians established it independently. The names of the most common cases derive from Greek by way of Latin translation, as does the term case itself.

---

CASE

 in full computer-aided software engineering

Use of computers in designing sophisticated tools to aid the software engineer and to automate the software development process as much as possible. It is particularly useful where major software products are designed by teams of engineers who may not share the same physical space. CASE tools can be used for simple operations such as routine coding from an appropriately detailed design in a specific programming language, or for more complex tasks such as incorporating an expert system to enforce design rules and eliminate software defects and redundancies before the coding phase.

---

(Computer-Aided Software Engineering or Computer-Aided Systems Engineering) Software that is used in any and all phases of developing an information system, including analysis, design and programming. For example, data dictionaries and diagramming tools aid in the analysis and design phases, while application generators speed up the programming phase.

Higher-Level Describing and Less Programming
CASE tools provide automated methods for designing and documenting traditional structured programming techniques. The ultimate goal of CASE is to provide a language for describing the overall system that is sufficient to generate all the necessary programs. See application generator. See also case statement.

---

1.		CASE - Computer Aided Software Engineering.
2.		CASE - Common Application Service Element.
3.	(programming)	case - switch statement.
4.	(character)	case - Whether a character is a capital letter ("upper case" - ABC..Z) or a small letter ("lower case" - abc..z). The term case comes from the printing trade when the use of moving type was invented in the early Middle Ages (Caxton or Gutenberg?) and the letters for each font were stored in a box with two sections (or "cases"), the upper case was for the capital letters and the lower case was for the small letters. The Oxford Universal Dictionary of Historical Principles (Feb 1993, reprinted 1952) indicates that this usage of "case" (as the box or frame used by a compositor in the printing trade) was first used in 1588.