Substantives have three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), two numbers (singular and plural), and eight cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, ablative or instrumental, communicative, and vocative). According to Bhat, Tulu has two distinct locative cases. The communicative case is used with verbs like "tell", "speak", "ask", "beseech", "inquire", and denotes "at whom" a message, an inquiry, or a request is aimed, as in "I told "him"." or "I speak "to them"." It is also used to denote "relationship with whom" it is about, in a context like "I am on good terms "with him"." or "I have nothing "against him"." Bhat calls it the sociative case. It is somewhat similar to the comitative case, but different in that it denotes communication or relationship, not physical companionship. The plural suffix is "-rŭ", "-ḷu", "-kuḷu", or "-āḍḷu"; as, "mēji" ("table"), "mējiḷu" ("tables"). The nominative case is unmarked, while the remaining cases are expressed by different suffixes.