illative

Illative case in the Finno-Ugric languages

Illative (from Latin illatus "brought in") is, in the Finnish language, Estonian language and the Hungarian language, the third of the locative cases with the basic meaning of "into (the inside of)".

An example from Hungarian would be "a házba" (into the house).

An example from Estonian would be "majasse" and "majja" (into the house), formed from "maja" (a house).

An example from Finnish would be "taloon" (into the house), formed from "talo" (a house). In Finnish, the case is formed by adding -h@n, where '@' represents the last vowel, and then removing the 'h' if a simple long vowel would result. For example, talo + h@n becomes talohon, where the 'h' elides and produces taloon with a simple long 'oo'; cf. maa + h@n becomes maahan, without the elision of 'h'. This unusually complex way of adding a suffix can be explained by its reconstructed origin: a voiced palatal fricative. (Modern Finnish has lost palatalization and other fricatives than 'h' or 's'.)

The other locative cases in Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are:

• Inessive case ("in")
• Elative case ("out of")
• Adessive case ("on")
• Allative case ("onto")
• Ablative case ("from off of")

Illative case in the Lithuanian language

The illative case, denoting direction of movement, is rare in modern standard Lithuanian, although it's used in the common spoken language, especially in certain dialects. Its singular form is more popular than the plural and can be found 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, although since the beginning of the 20th century) it isn't included in the list of standard Lithuanian cases and the prepositional construction į+accusative is more frequently used today to denote direction, and is the one promoted by grammar books as the correct one. The illative case was used extensively in older Lithuanian; the first Lithuanian grammar book by Daniel Klein, that mentions both illative and į+accusative, calls the usage of the illative "more elegant". In later times, it often appeared in written texts of the authors who grew in Dzukija or Eastern Aukštaitija, such as Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius.

The illative case in Lithuanian has its own endings, that are different for each declension paradigm, although quite regular, compared with some other Lithuanian cases. An ending of the illative always ends with n in the singular, and sna is the final part of an ending of the illative in the plural.

Certain fixed phrases in the standard language are illiatives, such as patraukti atsakomybėn ("to arraign"), dešinėn! ("turn right").

Examples:

• Masculine gender words (singular, singular illative, plural, plural illative, English translation)
  • karas, karan, karai, karuosna, war(s)
  • lokys, lokin, lokiai, lokiuosna, bear(s)
  • akmuo, akmenin, akmenys, akmenysna, stone(s)

• Feminine gender words (the same cases as above):
  • upė, upėn, upės, upėsna, river(s)
  • jūra, jūron, jūros, jūrosna, sea(s)
  • obelis, obelin, obelys, obelysna, appletree(s)

Donate to Wikimedia