Palun anna mulle õunu!Linguaphile wrote:Please give me some apples.
This is where the different variables kind of mess with each other, it's-nominative-because-it's-imperative but it's-partitive-because-it's-some and if I stop and think about it too much it really messes with my brain. Let's wait for someone else to sort out these apples. In the meantime, let's ask for one at a time (anna mulle õun!) or specify how many or how much (anna mulle kolm õuna! anna mulle kaks kilo õuna!)
(Seriously though. I found other examples, like anna mulle leiba "give me some bread" and anna mulle särke, "give me some shirts." The first one uses partitive singular and the second one uses partitive plural. I found almost no examples involving apples, so I'm either doing it wrong, or Estonians never ask for apples. If I say palun anna mulle õuna!, will I end up with an undefined quantity of apples, or with just part of an apple, like a small slice or the core and the stem perhaps? Õunu? How about anna mulle mõned õunad?)
Or if you want to be more explicit, then Palun anna mulle mõned õunad!
Or if you want to be more precise, then Palun anna mulle natuke õunu!, Palun anna mulle paar* õuna! etc...
I think this mostly deals with apple(s) as a substance rather than discrete pieces. It could be pretty much anything from one or more apples to one or more pieces/slices of apple(s), or even a mashed lump of apple-y substance.Palun anna mulle õuna!
* paar õuna - this means here "couple of apples"; a pair of apples would be paar õunu or üks paar õunu.