The partitive 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 ...
, , or more ambiguously ) 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 ...
which denotes "partialness", "without result", or "without specific identity". It is also used in contexts where a subgroup is selected from a larger group, or with numbers.
Finnic languages
In the
Finnic languages
The Finnic (''Fennic'') or more precisely Balto-Finnic (Balto-Fennic, Baltic Finnic, Baltic Fennic) languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 mi ...
, such as
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 ...
and
Estonian, this case is often used to express unknown identities and
irresultative actions. For example, it is found in the following circumstances, with the characteristic ending of ''-a'' or ''-ta'':
* After numbers, in singular: "kolme taloa" → "three houses" (cf. plural, where both are used, e.g. ''sadat kirjat'' "the hundreds of books", ''sata kirjaa'' "hundred books" as an irresultative object.)
* For
atelic actions (possibly incomplete) and ongoing processes: "luen kirjaa" → "I'm reading a book"
** Compare with
telic
Telic may refer to:
*Grammatically, indicating telicity
*A central argument of Teleology says that the world has clearly been constructed in a purposeful telic rather than a chaotic manner, and must therefore have been made by a rational being, i.e ...
actions in accusative case: "luen kirjan" → "I will read the (entire) book"
* With atelic verbs, particularly those indicating emotions: "rakastan tätä taloa" → "I love this house"
* For tentative inquiries: "saanko lainata kirjaa?" → "can I borrow the book?"
* For uncountables: "lasissa on maitoa" → "there is (some) milk in the glass"
* Compositions: "pala juustoa" → "a piece of cheese"
* In places where English would use "some" or "any": "onko teillä kirjoja?" → "do you have any books?"
** Compare with nominative case: "onko teillä kirjat?" → "do you have the (specific) books?"
* For negative statements: "talossa ei ole kirjaa" → "in the house,
here
Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to:
Software
* Here Technologies, a mapping company
* Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Technologies, Here
Television
* Here TV (form ...
is not
book"
* Comparisons
** Without "kuin" ("than"): "saamista parempaa on antaminen" → "what is better than receiving is giving"
** The more common form "antaminen on parempaa kuin saaminen" "giving is better than receiving" places only the comparative adverb in the partitive.
Where not mentioned, the accusative case would be ungrammatical. For example, the partitive must always be used after singular numerals.
As an example of the irresultative meaning of the partitive, ''ammuin karhun'' (
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 ‘th ...
) means "I shot the bear (dead)", whereas ''ammuin karhua'' (partitive) means "I shot (at) the bear" without specifying if it was even hit. Notice that Finnish has no native
future tense, so that the partitive provides an important reference to the present as opposed to the future. Thus ''luen kirjaa'' means "I am reading a/the book" whereas ''luen kirjan'' means "I will read a/the book". Thus "luen" can mean "I read", "I am reading" or "I will read" depending on the case form of the word that follows. The partitive form ''kirjaa'' indicates incompleted action and hence the meaning of the verb form is present tense. The accusative form ''kirjan'' indicates completed action when used with the past tense verb but indicates planned future action when used with a verb in the present tense. Hence ''luen kirjan'' means "I will read the book".
The case with an unspecified identity is ''onko teillä kirjoja'', which uses the partitive, because it refers to unspecified books, as contrasted to
nominative ''onko teillä (ne) kirjat?'', which means "do you have (those) books?"
The partitive case comes from the older
ablative case. This meaning is preserved e.g. in ''kotoa'' (from home), ''takaa'' (from behind), where it means "from".
A Western Finnish dialectal phenomenon seen in some dialects is the assimilation of the final ''-a'' into a preceding vowel, thus making the
chroneme
In linguistics, a chroneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant. The noun ''chroneme'' is derived , and the suffixed ''-eme'', which is analogous to the ''-eme'' in ''phoneme'' ...
the partitive marker. For example, ''suurii'' → ''suuria'' "some big --".
In Estonian, the system is generally similar. In Estonian grammatical tradition, the term "accusative" is not used, since like in Finnish, the total object form coincides with the genitive in the singular, and the nominative in the plural.
In many Estonian words, the difference between the full and partial object cases is only in vowel or consonant quantity (long vs overlong), which is not marked in writing, except for stop consonants. Thus, the distinction between a total and partial object may be apparent in speech but not in writing. For example, the sentence ''Linn ehitab kooli'' would mean "The city will build a/the school" when pronounced with a long vowel "o" in ''kooli'' "school (genitive case)", and "The city is building a/the school" with an overlong "o" (partitive case).
For many verbs in Estonian, an additional adverb is almost always added when a completed action is meant - for example, ''ma söön leiba'' "I'm eating bread", vs ''ma söön leiva ära'' "I will eat the (whole) bread". Since Estonian, unlike Finnish, has words where the genitive and partitive singular are identical even in pronunciation, this can provide disambiguation in those cases - e.g ''ma söön kala'' "I'm eating fish", vs ''ma söön kala ära'' "I will eat (all of) the fish".
Sámi
Of the
Sámi languages
Sámi languages ( ), in English also rendered as Sami and Saami, are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sámi people in Northern Europe (in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, and extreme northwestern Russia). There are, dependin ...
,
Inari
Inari may refer to:
Shinto
* Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit
** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari
** Inari Shrine, shrines to the Shinto god Inari
* Inari-zushi, a type of sushi
Places
* Inari, ...
and
Skolt Sámi
Skolt Sámi ( , "the Sámi language", or , "the Eastern Sámi language", if a distinction needs to be made between it and the other Sámi languages) is a Uralic, Sámi language that is spoken by the Skolts, with approximately 300 speakers in ...
still have a partitive, although it is slowly disappearing and its function is being taken over by other cases.
Skolt Sámi
The
partitive In linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that indicates partialness. Nominal partitives are syntactic constructions, such as "some of the children", and may be classified semantically as either set partitives or entity partitives ba ...
is used only in the
singular
Singular may refer to:
* Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms
* Singular homology
* SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS)
* Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
and can always be replaced by the genitive. The partitive marker is ''-d''.
# It appears after numbers larger than 6:
#: ''kääu´c čâustõkkâd'': eight lassos
#: This can be replaced with ''kää´uc čâustõõǥǥ''.
# It is also used with certain
postpositions
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
:
#: ''kuä´tted vuâstta'': against a ''kota''
#: This can be replaced with ''kuä´đ vuâstta''.
# It can be used with the
comparative
general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as well ...
to express that which is being compared:
#: ''Kå´lled pue´rab'' : better than gold
#: This would nowadays more than likely be replaced by ''pue´rab ko kå´ll''
Russian
The
Russian language usually uses the
genitive case to express partialness. However, some Russian
mass nouns have developed a distinct partitive case, also referred to as the "second genitive case". The partitive arose from the merger of the declensions of ''*-ŏ'' and ''*-ŭ'' stem nouns in
Old East Slavic, which left the former ''*-ŭ'' stem genitive suffix available for a specialized use.
In modern Russian, use of the partitive case is often facultative. In many situations, the partitive and the genitive can be used almost synonymously: , ' (partitive) and ' (genitive) both mean "a cup of tea"; , ' (partitive) and ' (genitive) both mean "lots of smoke". The partitive variant is preferred with verbs: , ', "to have a drink of tea". The genitive variant is used more frequently when the mass noun is modified by an adjective: ', "a cup of hot tea".
Notes
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
is Finnish a difficult language, thisisFINLAND.fi*
How to form partitive in Finnish, Finnishteacher.comWords that require the use of the partitive in Finnish
*
List of Russian nouns with a distinct partitive case in the Russian Wiktionary
{{Grammatical cases
Grammatical cases
Grammatical number