ESTONIAN | EESTI KEEL
CASES | KÄÄNE
There are 14 cases in Estonian! Wow!
KEY/LEGEND:
** = Examples borrowed from sources
Sg.= Singular Form of a Word
Pl. = Plural Form of a Word
Gen.= Genetive Case
1. Nominative
-Expressing a Direct Object.
ex.: (A) House // Maja
-No suffix added
2. Genetive-Accusative
-Relation/Possesion and total object
ex.: Peeter kirjutas luulestuse//Peter wrote a poem [finished action]**
-No suffix added
3. Partitive
-Unfinished Action
ex.: Peeter kirjutas luuletust//Peter wrote a poem. **
-Possible Suffix Endings: n/a, -t, -ta
4. Illative
-Meaning "into"
-Suffix Endings Sg. & Pl.: n/a and -sse
-Suffix Endings to add to the stem constant when Sg.: -te, -ha, -he, -hu
-Formed by taking the gen. form and adding suffix.
ex.: majasse // into the house**
5. Inessive
-Meaning "in/inside of"
-Suffix at end of gen. form add -s
ex.: majas//in a house**
6. Elative
-Meaning "out of (a)/from on a"
-Suffix at end of gen. form add -st
ex.: majast//out of (a) house//from on a house
7. Allative
-Meaning "to (someone/somewhere)"
-Suffix at end of gen. form add -le or -lle (for shor voweled words)
ex.: ma lähend majale//I am going to the house.
8. Adessive
-Meaning "at/on"
-Suffix at end of gen. form add -l
ex.: ma istun majal//I sit on (a) house
9. Ablative
-Meaning "from" (in an away manner)
-Suffix at end of gen. form -lt
ex.: majalt//from (a) house
10. Translative
-Meaning "to a"
-Suffix at end of gen. form add -ks
-mõtteks//to a thought**
11. Terminative
-Meaning "(up) to"
-Suffix at end of gen. form add -ni
ex.: mõtteni//up to a thought**
12. Essive
-Meaning "as (a)"
-Suffix at end of gen. form add -na
ex.: mõttena//as a thought**
13. Abessive
-Meaning "without (a)"
-Suffix at end of gen. form add -ta (sound is -tta)
ex.:mõtteta//without a thought**
14. Comitative
-Meaning "with (the)"
-Suffix at the end of gen. form add -ga (sound -ka)
ex.:mõttega//with the thought**
Cases 1-3 (blue) are grammatical cases, meaning that they have specual grammar rules that apply like conjugation and adjective agreement. *Note that the third person does not have a gender role (like "one" in English.") except that it also means "he" and "she."
Cases 4-14 are semantic cases, meaning that these cases give better meaning to a sentence which we will look at here in a minute with examples.
Cases 4-6 (pink) are known as the inner locative cases. This means that they describing what is happening to an object inside of/to it location-wise.
Cases 7-9 (pink and underlined) are known as the outer locative cases. They describe what is happening to and around the outside of an object.
*See Figure 1.1 below for visual aid for cases 4-9.
Cases 10-14 (green and underlined) are all of the other cases that we have in English context, but we just don't have a name for the case.
Sources used:
Introduction To Estonian Linguistics by Alo Raun and Andrus Saareste (1965)
Figure 1.1 Locatives from estonianlanguage.blogspot.com