grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

, the prolative case ( abbreviated ), also called the vialis case ( abbreviated ), prosecutive case ( abbreviated ), traversal case, mediative case, or translative case,Haspelmath, Martin. ''Terminology of Case'' in ''Handbook of Case'', Oxford University Press, 2006. is a

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...

of a

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Interlinear gloss, glossed ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the part of speech, parts of speech, but so ...

that has the basic meaning of "by way of" or "via". In Finnish, the prolative case follows an established application in a number of fossilized expressions to indicate "by (medium of transaction)". It can be used in other constructions, but then it does not sound "natural". Examples would be "postitse" ("by post"), "puhelimitse" ("by telephone"), "meritse" ("by sea"), "netitse" ("over the Internet"). A number of Finnish grammarians classify the prolative form as an

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

because it does not require agreement with adjectives like other Finnish cases. This claim is not true, however, because an adjective will agree with the prolative: "Hän hoiti asian pitkitse kirjeitse" ("He/she dealt with the matter by way of a long letter"). The prolative exists in a similar state in the

Estonian language Estonian ( ) is a Finnic language and the official language of Estonia. It is written in the Latin script and is the first language of the majority of the country's population; it is also an official language of the European Union. Estonian is sp ...

. The vialis case in Eskimo–Aleut languages has a similar interpretation, used to express movement using a surface or way. For example, in the

Greenlandic language Greenlandic, also known by its Endonym and exonym, endonym Kalaallisut (, ), is an Inuit languages, Inuit language belonging to the Eskaleut languages#Internal classification, Eskimoan branch of the Eskaleut languages, Eskaleut language family. ...

'by ship' or in Central Alaskan Yup'ik 'by river' or 'by sled'.

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

grammars frequently list the ''nortzat / nortako'' case (suffix ''-tzat'' or ''-tako'') as "prolative" (''prolatiboa''). However, the meaning of this case is unrelated to the one just described above for other languages and alternatively has been called "

essive 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. 6 ...

/ translative", as it means "for omething else as (being) omething else; e.g., ''hiltzat eman'' "to give up for dead", ''lelotzat hartu zuten'' "they took him for a fool". The meaning "by way of" of the case labelled prolative in the above languages is expressed in Basque by means of the

instrumental An instrumental or instrumental song is music without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through Semantic change, semantic widening, a broader sense of the word s ...

(suffix ''- ''). This case is also called the prosecutive case in some languages. It is found under this name in Tundra Nenets, in Old

and, with spatial nouns, in Mongolian.Sechenbaatar ečenbaγatur Borjigin. 2003. ''The Chakhar dialect of Mongol: a morphological description''. Helsinki: Finno-Ugrian society.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Prolative Case Grammatical cases

See also

Further reading

References