grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...

, the terminative or terminalis 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 ...

) is a case specifying a limit in space and time and also to convey the goal or target of an action.

Assamese

In the

Assamese language Assamese (), also Asamiya ( ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in the north-east Indian state of Assam, where it is an official language, and it serves as a '' lingua franca'' of the wider region. The easternmost Indo-Iranian langua ...

, the terminative case is indicated by the suffix :

Bashkir

In the Bashkir language, the terminative case is indicated by the suffix : However,

postposition 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 ...

s (), (), () 'till, up to' are more frequently used in Bashkir to convey this meaning.

Classical Hebrew

T.J. Meek has argued that "the so-called locative " in

Classical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of t ...

"is terminative only and should be renamed terminative ."

Estonian

In the

Estonian language Estonian ( ) is a Finnic language, written in the Latin script. It is the official language of Estonia and one of the official languages of the European Union, spoken natively by about 1.1 million people; 922,000 people in Estonia and 160, ...

, the terminative case is indicated by the '-ni' suffix: *: 'to the river'/'as far as the river' *: 'until six o'clock'

Hungarian

The

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 ...

uses the '-ig' suffix. *: 'as far as the house' *: 'until six o'clock' If used for time, it can also show how long the action lasted. *: 'for six hours'/'six hours long' *: 'for a hundred years' It is not always clear whether the thing in terminative case belongs to the interval in question or not. *: 'I stayed until the concert (ended or started?)' Here it is more likely that the person only stayed there until the concert began. *: 'Say a number from 1 to (until) 10.' However here 10 can be said as well. The corresponding question word is ''?'', which is simply the question word ''?'' ('what?') in terminative case.

Sumerian

In Sumerian, the terminative case not only was used to indicate end-points in space or time but also end-points of an action itself such as its target or goal. In this latter role, it functioned much like an accusative case.

Finnish

The use of the

'' asti'' (or synonymously '' saakka'') with the

illative In grammar, the illative case (; abbreviated ; from la, illatus "brought in") is a grammatical case used in the Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Hungarian languages. It is one of the locative cases, and has the basic meaning of "int ...

(or

allative 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 finer ...

or sublative) case in Finnish very closely corresponds to the terminative. These same postpositions with the elative (or

ablative 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. ...

) case also express the opposite of a terminative: a limit in time or space of origination or initiation.

Japanese

The

Japanese particle Japanese particles, or , are suffixes or short words in Japanese grammar that immediately follow the modified noun, verb, adjective, or sentence. Their grammatical range can indicate various meanings and functions, such as speaker affect and ...

まで (''made'') acts like a terminative case.

References

{{Grammatical cases Grammatical cases