Nominal cases

[fms]

Dear all,

I was wondering if anyone knew of some good resources that could explain the different nominal cases to me. So far, I have understood how to use the inessive case (-mas) as a sort of present continuous participle. But what about the others? What are they for?

Aitäh!

[Virankannos]

You talk about nominal cases but then you give an example that is a verb form. Just to clarify: do you wish to know more about the cases of the nouns, or the infinite verb forms that contain case endings and their meanings? You can see a list of cases and a brief description here. Naturally the list can't cover all possible meanings of the cases. Only a fraction of the case endings are used with verbs:

tegemas (inessive)
tegemast (elative)
tegemata (abessive) 'without doing'
tegemaks (translative) 'in order to do'

Inessive ending appears in the so-called des-vorm, too: tehes 'while doing'

[ainurakne]

Hello again, fms!

Unfortunately I don't know any resources, but I can give you some examples.

So far, I have understood how to use the inessive case (-mas) as a sort of present continuous participle.

Indeed, it sometimes acts kind of like present continuous. Together with "-ma" (illative) and "-mast" (elative) they form relative future - relative present - relative past triplet. For example:
hakkan olema ~ I will be / exist
olen olemas ~ I am, I exist / am existing
lakkan olemast ~ I (will) cease to exist

But more often than not they also bear locative meaning. For example:
lähen sööma ~ I go / am going / will go to a place where I (will) eat
olen söömas ~ I am at a place where I eat / am eating
tulen söömast ~ I come / am coming / will come from a place where I ate

"-mas" can also mean that something is about to happen:
Olen kohe koju jõudmas. ~ I am about to get/reach home.

"-mast" is used to indicate prevented actions: takistan minemast (I obstruct from going), hoidun minemast (I refrain from going), keeldun minemast (I refuse to go), keelan minemast (I forbid to go), hoian minemast (I keep from going), etc...

"-mast" is also used with "tere", "suur tänu" and the verb "tänama":
Tere tulemast!, Suur tänu tulemast!, Tänan tulemast!, etc...


Then there's also "-tama" which is passive "-ma" (not to be confused with verbs that naturally end with -tama). I think it's only used with the verb "pidama" as 'must', 'have to', because in that case "pidama" doesn't have passive voice. For Example:
See pidi juba ammu valmis ehitatama. ~ this had to be built a long time ago already


"-maks" is exactly as Virankannos said, 'in order to do' (sometimes simply 'to do'). It is equivalent to "et" + infinitive:
Pidin vara ärkama, et õigel ajal tööle jõuda. -> Et õigel ajal tööle jõuda, pidin vara ärkama. -> Jõudmaks õigel ajal tööle, pidin vara ärkama ~ in order to get to work in time, I had to wake up early


"-mata" acts exactly the same way as abessive case for nouns.

[Virankannos]

Then there's also "-tama" which is passive "-ma" (not to be confused with verbs that naturally end with -tama). I think it's only used with the verb "pidama" as 'must', 'have to', because in that case "pidama" doesn't have passive voice. For Example:
See pidi juba ammu valmis ehitatama. ~ this had to be built a long time ago already

This was totally new information for me (and I had thought I knew Estonian morphology pretty well by now) I suppose this form is seldom used, or at least I've never encountered it. Finnish actually has a parallel form, albeit rather archaic. It's called MA-infinitive passive instructive and you mostly see it in necessive constructions not unlike its Estonian counterpart:

Tämä pitää kerrottaman. 'This must be told'

[ainurakne]

I think it's quite rare indeed. I can't see much reason for using it outside of serious news media and other such formal information channels.


Until a few years ago I didn't know about it either, at least I hadn't paid any attention to it even if I had seen it. When I finally found out what it's for, I thought it must have been recently invented just to make using "pidama" in passive voice possible.

But now that you mention this

Tämä pitää kerrottaman. 'This must be told'

it seems to be something quite old (unless it's recently borrowed from Finnish).

I think the same sentence is also possible in Estonian:
"See peab (välja) öeldama." (although it sounds a bit strange, "See tuleb (välja) öelda." feels much more natural).