In
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
, the illative case (;
abbreviated
An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
; from la, illatus "brought in") is a
grammatical case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In vari ...
used in the
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 ...
,
Estonian,
Lithuanian,
Latvian and
Hungarian language
Hungarian () is an Uralic language spoken in Hungary and parts of several neighbouring countries. It is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Outside Hungary, it is also spoken by Hungarian ...
s. It is one of the
locative
In grammar, the locative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases, together with the ...
cases, and has the basic meaning of "into (the inside of)". An example from Hungarian is ('into the house', with meaning 'the house'). An example from Estonian is and ('into the house'), formed from ('house'). An example from Finnish is ('into the house'), formed from ('a house'), another from Lithuanian is ('into the boat') formed from ('boat'), and from Latvian ('into the boat') formed from ('boat').
In Finnish
The case is formed by adding ''-hVn'', where 'V' represents the last vowel, and then removing the 'h' if a simple
long vowel
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...
would result. For example, + ''Vn'' becomes with a simple long 'oo'; cf. + ''hVn'' becomes , without the elision of 'h'. This unusually complex way of adding a suffix can be explained by its reconstructed origin: a
voiced palatal fricative
The voiced palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that represents this sound is (crossed-tail j), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j\. It is th ...
. (Modern Finnish has lost
palatalization and
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
s other than 'h' or 's'.) In some dialects spoken in
Ostrobothnia, notably
South Ostrobothnia
South Ostrobothnia ( fi, Etelä-Pohjanmaa; sv, Södra Österbotten) is one of the 19 regions of Finland. It borders the regions of Ostrobothnia, Central Ostrobothnia, Central Finland, Pirkanmaa, and Satakunta. Among the Finnish regions, South O ...
, the 'h' is not removed; one says . Some dialects of
Finland Proper
Southwest Finland, calqued as Finland Proper ( fi, Varsinais-Suomi ; sv, Egentliga Finland), is a region in the southwest of Finland. It borders the regions of Satakunta, Pirkanmaa, Tavastia Proper (Kanta-Häme), Uusimaa, and Åland. The regi ...
and
Kymenlaakso
Kymenlaakso ( sv, Kymmenedalen; " Kymi/Kymmene Valley") is a region in Finland. It borders the regions of Uusimaa, Päijät-Häme, South Savo and South Karelia and Russia (Leningrad Oblast). Its name means literally ''The Valley of River Kymi'' ...
also have a similar feature.
In some instances is added, e.g. (room) and (London) thus and respectively.
The other locative cases in Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are:
*
Inessive case
In grammar, the inessive case (abbreviated ; from la, inesse "to be in or at") is a locative grammatical case. This case carries the basic meaning of "in": for example, "in the house" is in Finnish, in Estonian, () in Moksha, in Basque, in ...
("in")
*
Elative case
In grammar, the elative case (abbreviated ; from la, efferre "to bring or carry out") is a locative grammatical case with the basic meaning "out of". Usage Uralic languages
In Finnish, the elative is typically formed by adding ", in Estonian by ...
("out of")
*
Adessive case
In grammar, an adessive case (abbreviated ; from Latin '' adesse'' "to be present (at)": ''ad'' "at" + ''esse'' "to be") is a grammatical case generally denoting location at, upon, or adjacent to the referent of the noun; the term is most frequentl ...
("on")
*
Allative case
In grammar, the allative case (; abbreviated ; from Latin ''allāt-'', ''afferre'' "to bring to") is a type of locative grammatical case. The term allative is generally used for the lative case in the majority of languages that do not make fine ...
("onto")
*
Ablative case
In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. T ...
("from")
In Lithuanian
The illative case, denoting direction of movement, is now less common in the standard language but is common in the spoken language, especially in certain dialects. Its singular form, heard more often than the plural, appears in books, newspapers, etc. Most Lithuanian nouns can take the illative ending, indicating that from the descriptive point of view the illative still can be treated as a case in Lithuanian. Since the beginning of the 20th century it isn't included in the lists of standard Lithuanian cases in most grammar books and textbooks, and the prepositional construction į+
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
is more frequently used today to denote direction. The illative case was used extensively in older Lithuanian; the first Lithuanian grammar book, by
Daniel Klein, mentions both illative and į+accusative but calls the usage of the illative "more elegant". Later, it has often appeared in the written texts of the authors who grew up in
Dzukija or Eastern
Aukštaitija
Aukštaitija (; literally in Lithuanian: ''Upper lands'') is the name of one of five ethnographic regions of Lithuania. The name comes from lands being in upper basin of Nemunas River or being relative to Lowlands up to Šiauliai.
Geography
Au ...
, such as
Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius
Vincas Mickevičius (pl. ''Wincenty Mickiewicz'', October 19, 1882 – July 17, 1954), better known by his pen name Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius, was a Lithuanian writer, poet, novelist, playwright and philologist. He is also known as Vincas Krė ...
.
The illative case in Lithuanian has its own
endings, which are different for each declension paradigm, although quite regular, compared with some other Lithuanian cases. An ending of the illative always ends with in the singular, and is the final part of an ending of the illative in the plural.
Certain fixed phrases in the standard language are illatives, such as ("to arraign"), ("turn right").
Further reading
*
*
References
External links
Hungarian illative casefrom www.HungarianReference.com
{{Grammatical cases
Grammatical cases