The distributive-temporal of a

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

is a

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...

specifying when and how often something is done.

In Hungarian

This case (-nta/-nte) in Hungarian can express how often something happens (e.g. ''havonta'' "monthly", ''naponta'' "daily", ''telente'' "every winter", ''reggelente'' "every morning"); it can alternate with the

distributive case The distributive case (abbreviated ) is used on nouns for the meanings of ''per'' or ''each.'' In Hungarian it is ''-nként'' and expresses the manner when something happens to each member of a set one by one (e.g., ''fejenként'' "per head", ''e ...

in words of temporal meaning.

In Finnish

This

adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...

type in

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

can express that something happens at a frequent point in time (e.g. "on Sundays" is ''sunnuntaisin''), or an origin (e.g. "born in" is ''syntyisin''). It is restricted to a small number of adverb stems and nouns, mostly those with the plural formed with an ''-i-'' suffix. The ending is ''-sin''. For example, the root ''päivä'' (day) has the plural ''päivi-'', and thus the temporal distributive ''päivisin'' ("during the days"). The temporal distributive case specifies when something is done, in contrast to the

, which specifies how often something is done, as in regular maintenance. These sentences are a good example: ''Siivoan päivisin'' vs. ''Siivoan päivittäin''. The former (temp. dist.) means "I clean by day", implying the cleaning is done in the daytime, whereas the latter (dist.) means "I clean daily", implying that there's no day without cleaning. If the plural has another form than ''-i-'', either ''joka'' (each) or the

essive case In grammar, the essive case, or similaris case, ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical case.O'Grady, William, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, and Janie Rees-Miller. "Morphology: The Analysis of Word Structure." Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. 6t ...

is used. For example, ''uusi vuosi'' (New Year) is either ''joka uusi vuosi'' or ''uusina vuosina'', respectively.

References

Hungarian language Grammatical cases {{Grammatical cases