Should I use nominative or accusative after kun?

Question

Which of the following is correct​?

• Kun grandega potenco venas granda respondeco

• Kun grandega potenco venas grandan respondecon

I guess that the nominative case must be used for granda respondeco since other sentences like With him comes the cat translate to Kun li venas la kato.

However, I'm not sure, since I got Kun li venas la bluaj kato for With him comes the blue cat but got Kun li venas la bruna kato for with him comes the brown cat on Google Translate.

Could someone please tell which is right and why? Google Translate is confusing me!

Answer 1

Your sentence could be reordered like this and still have the same meaning (but with slightly different emphasis):

Granda respondeco venas kun grandega potenco.

The kun is a separate phrase and doesn’t affect the case for the granda respondeco. The only thing that matters is whether the respondeco is the subject or the object of the verb (i.e., whether it is doing the thing or whether it is having something done to it). In this case the respondeco is doing the thing (coming) so it should be the subject. Another good indication is that veni is an intransitive verb, so it can’t have an object anyway.

So your first form is correct:

Kun grandega potenco venas granda respondeco.

In general Google Translate probably isn’t a very good source to check your grammar because it tends to make a lot of mistakes with the accusative.

Answer 2

One of the rules of Esperanto Grammar is that a preposition is always followed by a nominative unless the accusative is being used to show movement towards the noun. (Salti sur la lito = Jump on the bed; Salti sur la liton = Jump onto the bed) Kun does not show movement towards an object, so it'll always receive the nominitive.