A European myself, I learned “Oxford English” in school which, naturally, involved the use of cases. Imagine my surprise when during the mandatory English course in college in the U.S., I only received blank stares at the mention thereof (even from the intructor)! I was at a complete loss when I tried to explain the difference between “who” and “whom”, a topic most students just didn’t grasp.

I would love to see the kasus find their way (back?) into American classrooms, as I think that many aspects of grammar could be explained more easily; however, I guess we’ll just have to stick with the times, as well as the changes they bring.

Anyway, thanks for making me feel at home for a moment! ))

I suggest that everyone check it out. An analytic language like English cannot be defined by the rules of a synthetic language like Latin.

You’re right. Cases usually refer to the inflection of a noun or pronoun, and so in one sense, “to me” would be a prepositional phrase. Yet, that prepositional phrase accomplishes the dative function. I can imagine that there might be disagreement on that perspective, but see http://www.bartleby.com/68/22/1622.html

Once you have “to Jim” you have a prepositional phrase.

On the subjunctive, one use is in contrary-to-fact contexts as in the song, “If I were a rich man.”