A grammatical case is a category of nouns and modifiers. Languages such as Russian and German have extensive case systems. However, English does not. English nouns have two cases and English pronouns have three.
The two cases of English nouns are nominative and genitive. For example, in the sentence Linda has arrived, the subject Linda is in nominative case. We can make Linda the object of the sentence and say I see Linda, but Linda has no accusative marker. The form is the same as the nominative. An alternative analysis is that the accusative marker is 0, but regardless the noun has the same form.
The genitive case is marked with 's and indicates possession. The sentence I borrowed Paul's book has an example of genitive case. With inanimate nouns, possession is often expressed with a prepositional phrase such as the name of the school.
English pronouns have three cases. In the sentence They love to study, the subject They is in nominative case. The accusative form is them such as in the sentence I know them. In the sentence I love their new home, the word their is in genitive case.
Many languages use extensive case systems. English does not because nouns have only two cases and pronouns have only three. The English case system was once more extensive, but it simplified over time.
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