15 cases?!

[Patrick88]

I was just browsing wikipedia, looking around at random pages out of curiosity, when I came across this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uralic_languages#Typology

It says that Estonian has 14 cases (ok...) but one is under debate...
I know and have used 14 cases...are they suggesting that there is a 15th? I looked around more and found this: "the Estonian exessive ending is -nt" is this some dialect thing? Or has the author just made this up?

[Loiks]

First examples I remembered:

kodunt 'from home', tagant 'from behind'. But there are only some words.

Also there are some relicts of instructive: palja jalu 'barefoot'.

Some also consider short illative separate case: majja vs. majasse.

[Levo]

First examples I remembered:

kodunt 'from home', tagant 'from behind'. But there are only some words.

Also there are some relicts of instructive: palja jalu 'barefoot'.

Some also consider short illative separate case: majja vs. majasse.

Yeah, such "cases" are those which make 31 cases in Hungarian subtotalt. Though the number of those which can be used for nearly all kind of words are less. So the number of real cases is less.

[Ada H.]

but one is under debate

Says Wikipedia: The direct object of the verb appears either in the accusative (for total objects) or in the partitive (for partial objects). The accusative coincides with the genitive in the singular and with nominative in the plural.

[feiticeira]

How can "tagant" be a possible 15th case?
I mean, as well as I know, it isn't a noun.
It is a "kohamääraja", adverb of place.

And what concerns "palju jalu", isn't that also an adverb?

[Loiks]

How can "tagant" be a possible 15th case?
I mean, as well as I know, it isn't a noun.
It is a "kohamääraja", adverb of place.

And what concerns "palju jalu", isn't that also an adverb?

But kodunt is a noun, isn't it? They are relicts of once existed paradigm. This -n- part is also seen in Finnish: kotona 'at home'. And South Estonian the inessive has always -n ending.

Instructive. Again see Finnish - it has instructive case in grammars: paljain jaloin.

[tunguuz]

Want some heresy? OK, get it.

My theory is very simple. The Indo-European language logic is plainly unsuitable to describe both, the variety of forms in Estonian and then the _fast_ transforming language in which several dialects and historic layers are present. The result comes from these parts:
* Some semantic concepts for Fenno-Ugric languages are missing in Indo-Europaen founded linguistic thinking/logic. Tries to reflect these concepts are still grass-root.
* The bigger the GDP the better the financing of linguistic studies
* The bigger the language, the more standardized it probably is
* The more political annexations during the history, the more influences from foreign languages. Here we had 50 deep Russian years and now English advertizing and movie scripts are badly influencing the language 15 yrs already. This is why a 30 years old grammar book or vocabulary could plain be old.

Remember how Germans historically were trying to describe Õ. The same with the III välde. Currently, considering välted, some scientific investigation has been done related to phonetics (there was a big project to gather phonetic corpus) and the result is they actually are revising the concept.

Remember that the machine translation for Estonian language is still missing. And to be extremely honest, the machine translation has some principal problems for Finnish, too. These languages need another kind of modelling to be formally described. It could be that our GDP is incapable to bear out these very specific investigations. (To go even further, the IT solutions for the Fenno-Ugric part of language is what we can pirate from Finnish linguists, they have more money for the issue but the problem of a fast changing exception-rich language is what we have to address alone).

To go even further, it is rather easy to understand Estonian language. The entropy the grammatic forms have, is rather high. Then, it is relatively easy to learn the language and be capable to make himself unerstood by Estonians. But last, it is next to impossible to master Estonian on a level where a native Estonian will not see your roots. It could be said that a pile of undocumented stilistic requirements and the knowledge of several language layers (everyday, home, professional) are what define your nativity (I have heard the same about the Finnish language). Currently the only way to master these layers and fast switch between these is to spend enormous time in a live Estonian environment.

However, be happy that you are studying a so specific language. It is like communicating with extraterrestrials

And ... please argue ... my goal is to understand these things better. I need to know what other people think about these ideas.

[ainurakne]

See teema on küll juba pisut vanavõitu, aga ma mõtlesin, et lisaks omalt poolt ka siia natukene.
Pärast seda, kui ma hakkasin soome keelt õppima ning igasuguseid huvitavaid seoseid soome ja eesti keele vahel nägema (näiteks, et eesti keele sisseütleva käände lühikestel vormidel on ühine minevik soome keele sisseütleva käändega, jne...), hakkas mind ka eesti keele grammatika rohkem huvitama. Ning nähes, et ka eesti keeles on(oli) tegelikult olemas viisiütlev kääne (nagu soome keeles), siis hakkas mind huvitama, et mis veel on eesti (ja ka soome) keeles olnud, mis aastasadade ja –tuhandete jooksul on ära kadunud.

Siin on siis käänded, mis ma leidnud olen (mõnda on juba siin teemas mainitud). Need on mitteproduktiivsed käänded ehk siis käänded, mida ei saa (enam) kõikide sõnade puhul kasutada:


Viisiütlev kääne (instruktiiv) – kuidas? mille abiga?

• jala, palja jalu/paljajalu – käin jala, lähen jala tööle, kõnnin paljajalu rannal
• ammuli sui – (pärani) lahtise suuga, vahtis mulle ammuli sui otsa
• pärani silmi, lahtisi silmi, avasilmi, kinnisilmi – lahtiste silmadega, silmad punnis peas, kinniste silmadega
• paljapäi – palja peaga, ilma peakatteta, tänapäeval käivad paljud noored talvel paljapäi väljas
• jne...

Soome keelga võrreldes (jalan, paljoin jaloin) nähtub, et ainsus peaks olema nagu omastaval käändel, aga mitmus nõuab vana i-mitmust, mida enam väga palju eesti keeles ei esine (välja arvatud teatud vanadel sõnadel).
Seoses viisiütleva käändega leidsin ka sellise põneva blogipostituse.


Eksessiiv – mingist olekust väljumine või eemaldumine (-nt, soome keeles –nta/ntä).
Kuulub komplekti oleva käändega (-na), mis varem tähendas rohkem mingis olekus olemist. Võib olla kuulus ka kunagi samasse komplekti lühike sisseütlev kääne, mis siis tähendas mingi oleku suunas liikumist, mitte kuhugi sisenemist, aga see on ainult minu arvamus.

• kodunt – tänapäeval kasutatakse vaheldumisi sõna seestütleva vormiga kodust. Võrdlus soome keelega: kodus – kotona, kodust(kodunt) – kotoa (kunagi oli see kotonta)
• tagant – võrdlus soome keelega: taga – takana, tagant – takaa (kunagi ole see takanta)

Veel ühe näitena võiks tuua sõna siia-siin-siit, mille kaks viimast vormi olid kunagi ilmselt siina ja siint.


Prolatiiv – mille kaudu? läbi mille? (-tsi, soome keeles –tse)

• meritsi – mere kaudu, mööda merd; Tallinnast pääseb Helsingisse meritsi; kõige lühem tee Tallinnast Helsingisse on meritsi.
  See kääne tundub ka tüvena tahtvat i-mitmust, nii et kui ise juurde teha, siis: maitsi – mööda maad, teitsi – mööda teed, jne...
• Siis on veel olemas: käsitsi – midagi tegema käte abil või käsi kasutades; ehitasin käsitsi omale maja; ma olen arvutiga koba, seetõttu koostan kõik dokumendid käsitsi
• Ning natukene värskem kasutus: telefonitsi – telefoni kaudu; rääkisime sellest telefonitsi; ajasin telefonitsi selle asja korda

Latiiv – teiste kohakäänete ühine esiisa (illatiiv, elatiiv, jne...): -s; praegu on sellest vist järel ainult sisseütlevad rudimendid, soome keeles: ylös, alas, ulos, pois. Eesti keeles sellest vist midagi enam alles ei ole, võib olla ainult üles, aga see võib ka olla lühivorm sõnast ülesse.


Kui kellelgi on midagi parandada või midagi põnevat lisada, siis jään huviga ootama.


-----------------------------


Although this thread is quite old already, I still thought it would be a good idea to add something.
After I began learning Finnish and began to see all kinds of interesting associations between Finnish and Estonian (for example, Finnish illative and Estonian short illative has common past, etc...), I became more interested by the Estonian grammar also. And after I saw that in Estonian there was also instructive case (like in Finnish), then it started to interest me, if there were more in Estonian (and in Finnish) that has become lost in centuries and millennias.

Here are some cases I have found (some of them have been already mentioned in this thread). These are non-productive cases, meaning they can’t be used with all words (anymore):


Instructive – how? with the aid of what?

• jala(on foot), palja jalu/paljajalu(barefoot) – käin jala(I walk(/visit places) on foot), lähen jala tööle(I go to work on foot), kõnnin paljajalu rannal(I walk barefoot on the beach)
• ammuli sui - with open mouth; vahtis mulle ammuli sui otsa(he/she stared at me with his/her mouth open)
• pärani silmi, lahtisi silmi, avasilmi, kinnisilmi – lahtiste silmadega(with open eyes), silmad punnis peas(eyes bulgy in the head), kinniste silmadega(with closed eyes)
• paljapäi – palja peaga(with bare/naked head), ilma peakatteta(without headwear/head covering), tänapäeval käivad paljud noored talvel paljapäi väljas(nowadays many youngsters go outside on winter without any head covering)
• etc...

By comparing to Finnish (jalan, paljoin jaloin), it seems that the singular is like genitive singular, but plural requires old i-plural which is not used very much anymore (except in some certain older words).
I also found this interesting blog post, but it's in Estonian.


Exessive – emanating or moving away from somekind of state (-nt, in Finnish –nta/ntä).
Belongs in the same group with the essive case (-na), which earlier meant more like to be in somekind of state. Maybe short illative was once in the same group with those cases, and meant then to move towards somekind of state, rather than to move into something, but that is just my opinion.

• kodunt – nowadays used intermittently with kodust, the elative form of the word. Compared to Finnish: kodus – kotona, kodust(kodunt) – kotoa (once kotonta)
• tagant – compared to Finnish: taga – takana, tagant – takaa (once takanta)

The word siia-siin-siit can be also brought as an example, it’s two last forms were once probably siina and siint.


Prolative – through what? via what?

• meritsi – by sea; Tallinnast pääseb Helsingisse meritsi(one can go by sea from Tallinn to Helsinki); kõige lühem tee Tallinnast Helsingisse on meritsi(the shortest way from Tallinn to Helsinki is by sea).
  This case seems to be also using i-plural as the stem, so when making these by oneself, then: maitsi – by land, teitsi – by road, etc...
• Then there is also: käsitsi – by hand, to use hands to do something; ehitasin käsitsi omale maja(I built a house for me using my hands/by my (own) hands); ma olen arvutiga koba, seetõttu koostan kõik oma dokumendid käsitsi(I suck with computers, so I create all my documents by hand)
• And a bit newer usage: telefonitsi – via phone; rääkisime sellest telefonitsi(we spoke about it via phone); ajasin telefontsi selle asja korda(I took care of it via phone)

Lative – common ancestor of other locative cases (illative, elative, etc...): -s; I think only illative rudiments are remained nowadays, in Finnish: ylös, alas, ulos, pois. In Estonian there seems to be nothing left, maybe only üles, but this can be also the short form of ülesse.


If someone finds any mistakes here or has something interesting to add, then I would be glad to hear about it.

[Palabriscious]

In Finnish there also exists this weird one:

It's called Oppositive and I think it goes with -tusten/-tysten

kasvot (face) becomes kasvotusten from face to face
or selkä (back) becomes selätysten back to back
vieri (side) --> vieretysten next to each other

Does this also exist in Estonian?

[ainurakne]

I hadn't heard anything about that case before. Thanks!
I now found it here (and also some other cases).

I haven't noticed something like that in Estonian, but:

• from face to face - I would translate it näost näkku, but in case of a situation where faces are opposite to each other, facing each other (näod vastamisi), then dictionary gives me näotsi, which is prolative of nägu.
• back to back would then be selitsi(prolative of selg), but also seljakuti and maybe even seliti(although maybe that last one is instead equal to selili ~ (lying) on back).
• next to each other, side by side - kõrvuti, küljekuti(again, maybe even küliti), I also want to say veeriti and veerekuti, but maybe now I'm just making up words.

Also vastatusten - vastakuti (/vastamisi), so maybe -kuti is something similar to Finnish -tusten/tysten.

[Loiks]

The -tsi ending has its Finnish counterpart in -tse, like ET meritsi, maitsi; FI meritse, maitse. (http://kirlah-kielet.blogspot.com/2007/ ... ritse.html). FI puhelimitse, ET telefonitsi is possible: võtsin temaga ühendust telefonitsi, but kind of high style to me. Internetitsi? e-postitsi? msn-itsi? skype'itsi? Why not? (No, it's not spoken Estonian. We'd rather use merd mööda, maad mööda; telefoni teel, meili teel, msn-is, skype'is.)

-ti is different. ET maiti, meriti FI maittain, merittäin. How to put it in English? See on maiti erinev. 'It's different if you take all countries and compare them with each other(?)' Maybe 'It's different countrywise'?

[ainurakne]

-ti is different. ET maiti, meriti FI maittain, merittäin. How to put it in English? See on maiti erinev. 'It's different if you take all countries and compare them with each other(?)' Maybe 'It's different countrywise'?

What about lapiti, serviti, pikuti and other such forms that answer to the question kuidas?. Are they contractions of -tsi or has -ti gotten itself multiple meanings (as Estonian has shifted from purely agglutinative to fusional) or is there some other explanation?

EDIT: for clarification:
as in Kalevipoeg, for example, where the hedgehog told Kalevipoeg to hit the enemies with planks edge first (edgeways, edgewise): 'Serviti, ikka serviti!'

[Lumekuninganna]

Viisiütlev kääne (instruktiiv) – kuidas? mille abiga?

• jala, palja jalu/paljajalu – käin jala, lähen jala tööle, kõnnin paljajalu rannal
• ammuli sui – (pärani) lahtise suuga, vahtis mulle ammuli sui otsa
• pärani silmi, lahtisi silmi, avasilmi, kinnisilmi – lahtiste silmadega, silmad punnis peas, kinniste silmadega
• paljapäi – palja peaga, ilma peakatteta, tänapäeval käivad paljud noored talvel paljapäi väljas
• jne...

Soome keelga võrreldes (jalan, paljoin jaloin) nähtub, et ainsus peaks olema nagu omastaval käändel, aga mitmus nõuab vana i-mitmust, mida enam väga palju eesti keeles ei esine (välja arvatud teatud vanadel sõnadel).

Your whole post was very interesting to me. I have an old Estonian phrasebook/dictionary published in 1949 that shows the instructive case in the small grammar section. It calls it "õpetus-ütlev" and gives the "barefoot" example: "Poisikene tuli paljajalu." It then pretty much ignores it for the rest of the book.

[ainurakne]

I have an old Estonian phrasebook/dictionary published in 1949 that shows the instructive case in the small grammar section. It calls it "õpetus-ütlev" and gives the "barefoot" example: "Poisikene tuli paljajalu." It then pretty much ignores it for the rest of the book.

Wow, '49. I guess the language was a bit different then.
Nice name that "õpetus-ütlev", seems like it's translated quite literally from some other language, since õpetus is also used for instruction, manual (at least nowadays it is).

It's a shame that there is so little information about instructive case, since it's really interesting case. I don't remember even hearing about it in school. But I guess they would never be able to teach us all the non-productive cases that are or have ever been used in Estonian language.

[corcaighist]

It's a shame that there is so little information about instructive case, since it's really interesting case. I don't remember even hearing about it in school. But I guess they would never be able to teach us all the non-productive cases that are or have ever been used in Estonian language.

Why not? Students could benefit from some classes in linguistics, if not a course (not that that would ever happen - not enough space on the curriculum/a or teachers to teach it). I teach some basics of linguistics to my students

[ainurakne]

What kind of students do you teach (is "student" used for õpilane or üliõpilane )?

University is definately the right place for digging deeper and teaching-learning that kind of interesting things (well they are probably doing that in the linguistics department already, but I don't know much about that since my only contact with (human)language related stuff in university has been 2 courses of English and 2 "half"-courses of basic Finnish).

But in regular school - yep, I don't think there is much room for squeezing that into the curriculum.
And most importantly - there is probably not many people who know about these things: if you can't find almost any material about instructive case, then how many Estonian teachers there can be who know all the ins and outs of bunch of other even less known cases and other forgotten grammatical constructs (which could all originate from different dialects - and teaching Estonian is unfortunately quite standard-Estonian centric (a fun satirical video about standard-Estonian centricness )).

[corcaighist]

What kind of students do you teach (is "student" used for õpilane or üliõpilane )?

It's used for both.

I teach 10-12th grade at gymnasium. I try and incorporate elements of linguistics into my normal English language classes but I also teach stand-alone History of the English Language and Socio-Cultural Linguistics courses, 28 hours each.

Nice video!

[ainurakne]

I teach 10-12th grade at gymnasium. I try and incorporate elements of linguistics into my normal English language classes but I also teach stand-alone History of the English Language and Socio-Cultural Linguistics courses, 28 hours each.

I wish I had had a native English teacher in gymnasium. Maybe then my pronunciation wouldn't be so incomprehensible.


But on topic:
Just the other day I was thinking why do I pronunciate õõnes (hollow) overlong, but õõnes (inessive of õõs - cavity) long - which is actually wrong, according to ÕS both should be long.
Well, it turns out that what influences me is that many words actually have a form which looks like inessive case (ends with -s), but is always in the "strong form" (overlong). And this form seems to mean "to be in a/the state of ...". For example (I'm marking overlong syllables with a dot(.) in front of them, just like in dictionaries):

• korts - wrinkle: korts, kortsu, .kortsu -> genitive + -s = inessive: kortsus (in a wrinkle), but: .kortsus - wrinkled
• punn ~ peg/bung(stopper)/pimple: punn, punni, .punni -> punnis (in a peg/bung(stopper)/pimple), but .punnis ~ bulgy
• puhv ~ "fluffy thingy": puhv, puhvi, .puhvi -> puhvis (in a "fluffy thingy"), but: .puhvis - "fluffy", in the state of "fluffiness"

Or with consonant gradation:

• auk - hole: auk, augu, .auku -> augus (in a hole), but: .aukus ~ caved in, to be in a hole like state
• lohk ~ concavity/dimple/dent: lohk, lohu, .lohku -> lohus (in a concavity/dimple/dent), but: .lohkus - quite similar to .aukus
• muhk - bump, opposite of lohk: muhk, muhu, .muhku -> muhus (inside a bump), but: .muhkus ~ protruding, opposite of .lohkus

It seems this form has derived from short illative, at least for the words in the previous examples: they look like short illative forms which have -s attached to them. And short illative can be actually used to show the going into this state:

• Maapind on lohkus. - (surface of) the ground is indented, it has an indentation in it
  Maapind vajus lohku. - (surface of) the gound indented/caved in, an indentation formed in it (not to be confused with real illative: Vesi voolas lohku. - water flowed into a concavity)
• Silmad on punnis peas. - eyes are bulgy in the head
  Silmad läksid peas punni. - eyes went into the state of bulginess, in the head

I guess this also answers the question that came up here.


I'm also wondering about those words, which already have overlong inessive forms. For example:
rõngas - ring, hoop, loop -> and inessive form is .rõngas
For me it seems that "sea saba on .rõngas" can mean both, that pig's tail is in a hoop and in a state of hoop (it's curly).

[sergejsibilev]

See teema on küll juba pisut vanavõitu, aga ma mõtlesin, et lisaks omalt poolt ka siia natukene.
Pärast seda, kui ma hakkasin soome keelt õppima ning igasuguseid huvitavaid seoseid soome ja eesti keele vahel nägema (näiteks, et eesti keele sisseütleva käände lühikestel vormidel on ühine minevik soome keele sisseütleva käändega, jne...), hakkas mind ka eesti keele grammatika rohkem huvitama. Ning nähes, et ka eesti keeles on(oli) tegelikult olemas viisiütlev kääne (nagu soome keeles), siis hakkas mind huvitama, et mis veel on eesti (ja ka soome) keeles olnud, mis aastasadade ja –tuhandete jooksul on ära kadunud.

Siin on siis käänded, mis ma leidnud olen (mõnda on juba siin teemas mainitud). Need on mitteproduktiivsed käänded ehk siis käänded, mida ei saa (enam) kõikide sõnade puhul kasutada:


Viisiütlev kääne (instruktiiv) – kuidas? mille abiga?

• jala, palja jalu/paljajalu – käin jala, lähen jala tööle, kõnnin paljajalu rannal
• ammuli sui – (pärani) lahtise suuga, vahtis mulle ammuli sui otsa
• pärani silmi, lahtisi silmi, avasilmi, kinnisilmi – lahtiste silmadega, silmad punnis peas, kinniste silmadega
• paljapäi – palja peaga, ilma peakatteta, tänapäeval käivad paljud noored talvel paljapäi väljas
• jne...

Soome keelga võrreldes (jalan, paljoin jaloin) nähtub, et ainsus peaks olema nagu omastaval käändel, aga mitmus nõuab vana i-mitmust, mida enam väga palju eesti keeles ei esine (välja arvatud teatud vanadel sõnadel).
Seoses viisiütleva käändega leidsin ka sellise põneva blogipostituse.


Eksessiiv – mingist olekust väljumine või eemaldumine (-nt, soome keeles –nta/ntä).
Kuulub komplekti oleva käändega (-na), mis varem tähendas rohkem mingis olekus olemist. Võib olla kuulus ka kunagi samasse komplekti lühike sisseütlev kääne, mis siis tähendas mingi oleku suunas liikumist, mitte kuhugi sisenemist, aga see on ainult minu arvamus.

• kodunt – tänapäeval kasutatakse vaheldumisi sõna seestütleva vormiga kodust. Võrdlus soome keelega: kodus – kotona, kodust(kodunt) – kotoa (kunagi oli see kotonta)
• tagant – võrdlus soome keelega: taga – takana, tagant – takaa (kunagi ole see takanta)

Veel ühe näitena võiks tuua sõna siia-siin-siit, mille kaks viimast vormi olid kunagi ilmselt siina ja siint.


Prolatiiv – mille kaudu? läbi mille? (-tsi, soome keeles –tse)

• meritsi – mere kaudu, mööda merd; Tallinnast pääseb Helsingisse meritsi; kõige lühem tee Tallinnast Helsingisse on meritsi.
  See kääne tundub ka tüvena tahtvat i-mitmust, nii et kui ise juurde teha, siis: maitsi – mööda maad, teitsi – mööda teed, jne...
• Siis on veel olemas: käsitsi – midagi tegema käte abil või käsi kasutades; ehitasin käsitsi omale maja; ma olen arvutiga koba, seetõttu koostan kõik dokumendid käsitsi
• Ning natukene värskem kasutus: telefonitsi – telefoni kaudu; rääkisime sellest telefonitsi; ajasin telefonitsi selle asja korda

Latiiv – teiste kohakäänete ühine esiisa (illatiiv, elatiiv, jne...): -s; praegu on sellest vist järel ainult sisseütlevad rudimendid, soome keeles: ylös, alas, ulos, pois. Eesti keeles sellest vist midagi enam alles ei ole, võib olla ainult üles, aga see võib ka olla lühivorm sõnast ülesse.


Kui kellelgi on midagi parandada või midagi põnevat lisada, siis jään huviga ootama.

See on täiesti huvitav aga mis siis Eesti koolis õpetajad lapstele sellest ütlevad? Kas nad räägivad, et need juhtumid on lihtsalt väljaarvamised või?

[ainurakne]

Kui mina koolis käisin, siis ei räägitud sellest midagi. Õpetati vaid neljateistkümmet (14) ametlikku käänet. Ei mainitud ka kõikvõmalikke vanemaid või haruldasemaid ja vähemkasutatavamaid vorme ning ei võrreldud eesti keelt teiste sugulaskeeltega. Ma ei mäleta isegi, et eesti keele murretest oleks eriti palju räägitud.

Aga seda ma ei tea, kas tänapäeval on asi juba paremaks läinud või mitte. Ehk oskab keegi noorem sellele vastata.