[net.nlang] Estonian Cases

jbdp@jenny.UUCP (Julian Pardoe) (11/19/85)

> I  am familiar with the case systems of many IndoEuropean languages (8
> seems to be the maximum),  but 16  cases  seems  most  outrageous!  If
> somebody  has  the time,  I would be most interested to understand how
> these cases are used.

Well,  mostly  the  cases express relationships that we use prepositions
for.  The English prepositional phrase "of John" has  an  equivalent  in
the  Genitive  "John's".  We  could  equally  well use some case form to
express the idea "in London".

The  cases  of  Estonian  are  as  follows (I think;  obviously a single
English translation cannot really capture the  range  of  meaning  of  a
case):
	
	nominative	raamat		a book (is...)
	genitive	raamatu		of a book
	partitive	raamatut	(some/any) book
	illative	raamatusse	into a book
	inessive	raamatus	in a book
	elative		raamatust	out of a book
	allative	raamatule	(on)to a book
	adessive	raamatul	on a book
	ablative	raamatult	from a book
	translative	raamatuks	(turn...) into a book
	essive		raamatuna	as a book
	terminative	raamatuni	as far as a book
	abessive	raamatuta	without a book
	comitative	raamatuga	with a book
   
The  case  system  of  Finnish  is  of  course very similar.   Without a
reference book I wouldn't like  to  claim  accuracy  for  the  following
list,  but  it  might  give  people  an  idea.  (I  can't  remember  the
declension of the Finnish word `raamat'[?] which means `Bible',  so I'll
use `kirja', book):

	nom: kirja	gen: kirjan	par: kirjaa (ending orig. -ta)
	ill: kirjaan	ine: kirjassa	ela: kirjasta
	all: kirjalle	ade: kirjalla	abl: kirjalta
	tra: kirjaksi	ess: kirjana	ter: NONE
	abe: kirjatta	com: NONE

There  is  also  a case meaning `along': kirjatse[?,  the translative?].
The  -na  case  is  used  mainly  (only?)  with  expressions  of   time:
p"aiv"an"a, "on the day", used in dates.

Hungarian  had  the  same  two  `in'  and `on' series (-ba,  -ban,  -bol
and -ra,  -an,  -rol).  There are also some endings with a -t-,  but I'm
not  sure  where they fit in.  I think I've seen a `-tol' and the ending
`t' is used with some place names:  Kolozsvart:  in  Kolozsvar/Cluj.  In
Hungarian as in Finnish one lives *in* some towns but *on* others!

Turkish has the just one positional series (-e,  -de, -den).  More  detailed
relationships  are  expressed  using  nouns like "ust, `top': ev "ust"unde :
house at-its-top: on the house.  There is also an ending `-ki' which adds a
`which is':  Topkap\idaki camiler: the mosques (which are) at Topkap\i.

Apologies  for  the  many  inaccuracies,  but  I wanted to give people a
flavour of how languages can make use of many cases.

Julian Pardoe
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