Estonian grammar is the grammar of the Estonian language.
Nouns
Case Singularending Pluralending Meaning/use Answers to question; notes Basic/grammatical cases Nominative ∅ (with or without vowel) -d Subject, object of imperative, (in plural) complete (telic) object Who? What? Genitive ∅ (with vowel) -de/-te Possession, relation, (in singular) complete (telic) object Whose? His?/Hers? Partitive -d, -t, ∅ (with vowel) -id, -sid, ∅ (modified vowel) Partial object, indefinite amount Whom? Him?/Her? Interior ("in") locative cases Illative -sse, -∅ (with vowel) -desse/-tesse, -isse In, into Whither? Inessive -s -des/-tes, -is In, inside Wherein? Elative -st -dest/-test, -ist Out of Whence? Exterior ("on") locative cases Allative -le -dele/-tele, -ile Towards, onto Whither? Adessive -l -del/-tel, -il At, on, upon Whereon?, on top of Ablative -lt -delt/-telt, -ilt From, off Whereof?, off of Other cases Translative -ks -deks/-teks, -iks Becoming, turning into Terminative -ni -deni/-teni Till, until, up to, towards (a person, a thing) Essive -na -dena/-tena Being, acting as, as people/things Abessive -ta -deta/-teta Without, lacking, bereft of Comitative -ga -dega/-tega With, in company of, in combination with
Inflectional endings as listed below are added to the stem of a noun, which is formed from: singular genitive: singular cases except nominative and partitive, plural nominative, singular partitive: plural genitive, plural genitive: plural cases except nominative and partitive.
Singular nominative, singular genitive and singular partitive are not predictable and have to be taken from the vocabulary (gradation may also apply).
Singular genitive always ends in vowel. When formed from a stem that ends in consonant, it can take the following endings: -a, -e, -i, -o, -u.
Singular partitive can take the following endings: -d, -t, -a, -e, -i, -u.
Plural partitive is formed from either singular genitive or singular partitive and can take the following endings (some words have two forms): -id: one-syllable words with long vowels aa, ee, õõ, uu, öö, ää, two-syllable words with long vowels or endings -em, -en, -el, -er, -ar, -ur, -e, -ne, -s or singular genitive with one or three syllables, three-syllable words with endings -ne, -s, -sid: one-syllable words with long vowels ii, üü or a diphthong, two-syllable words with short vowels, three-syllable words with endings -um, -on, -er, -ar, -är, -ov, -nna, -e: words with singular partitive endings -i, -u, -j, or singular partitive ending -a with the preceding syllable containing u, -i: words with singular partitive ending -e, or singular partitive ending on consonant with singular genitive ending -e, or singular partitive ending -a with the preceding syllable containing vowels e, o, ä, ö, ü or a diphthong with one of these vowels as the first sound with the exception of ei, äi, -u: words with singular partitive ending -a with the preceding syllable containing vowels a, i, õ or diphthongs ei, äi.
Singular illative has a short form in some words. It can take the following endings: -de, -he, -hu, -a, -e, -i, -u. In case it takes the vowel ending, this vowel is the same as the ending vowel of the singular genitive form of the given word, but the vowel (if it is already long or a diphthong) or its preceding consonant (if the vowel is short and the consonant either short or long) is lengthened to the third degree and thus becomes overlong. If illative ends with -sesse, then the short form is -sse.
Plural illative, inessive, elative, allative, adessive, ablative, translative have a short form in some words. If the plural partitive ends with -id, then the short plural stem is this form without -d (instead of plural genitive with -de-); if it ends with a vowel, then the short plural stem is this form; if it ends with -sid, then the short plural cannot be formed.
Emphasis: noun + -gi (after a final voiced consonant or vowel) / -ki (after a final voiceless consonant).
New nouns can be derived from existing nouns, adjectives and verbs using suffixes like -ja (agent, from -ma infinitive), -mine (gerund, from -ma infinitive), -la, -nna, -tar, -ur, -stik, -ndik, -nik, -ik, -k, -ng, -lane, -line, -kene, -ke, -e, -ndus, -dus, -us, -is, -kond, -nd, -istu, -u.
Pronouns + Declension of personal pronouns 1st 2nd 3rd singular nominative genitive partitive plural nominative genitive partitive
reflexive (nominative – genitive – partitive, singular / plural) / (-self) demonstrative (nominative – genitive – partitive, singular / plural) (this/that) (yonder) interrogative (nominative – genitive – partitive) (who) (what) (which out of many) (which out of two) existential (nominative – genitive – partitive) (someone) (something) (some) (one) free choice (nominative – genitive – partitive) (anyone/anything/any) (either) universal (nominative – genitive – partitive) (everyone/everything/each) (both)
Cases
There are traditionally considered to be 14 noun cases in Estonian:
# Case Singular Plural Example in Estonian Example in English Example in Estonian Example in English 1 Nominative a beautiful book beautiful books (as subject or total object) 2 Genitive of a beautiful book;a beautiful book(as total object) of beautiful books; 3 Partitive a beautiful book(as a partial object) beautiful books(as a partial object) 4 Illative into a beautiful book into beautiful books 5 Inessive in a beautiful book in beautiful books 6 Elative from a beautiful book from beautiful books 7 Allative onto a beautiful book onto beautiful books 8 Adessive on a beautiful book on beautiful books 9 Ablative off a beautiful book off beautiful books 10 Translative [to turn] (in)to a beautiful book [to turn] (in)to beautiful books 11 Terminative up to a beautiful book up to beautiful books 12 Essive as a beautiful book as beautiful books 13 Abessive without a beautiful book without beautiful books 14 Comitative with a beautiful book with beautiful books
Locative cases make up six or eight of these fourteen (depending on interpretation).
There are also some additional cases such as the instructive (, "by foot"; , "by hand"), or the similarly formed prolative (, "by the way of the sea"), which are not traditionally counted among the 14 grammatical cases.
Adjectives Inflection and derivation Inflectional endings are added to the stem of an adjective, which is formed like the one for nouns. However, adjectives do not have terminative, essive, abessive, and comitative cases. + Comparison of adjectives Type Degree GeneralPositive –Comparative Superlative /-em /
The stem for the comparative and superlative forms is the singular genitive of an adjective; if a word has two syllables in the genitive or a vowel following , then is left out and the last vowel in the stem changes to . The genitive and the partitive of the comparative itself are formed with and .
New adjectives can be derived from existing words by means of suffixes like: (active present participle, from infinitive), (active perfect participle, from infinitive), (passive present participle, from participle), (passive perfect participle), and .
Antonyms can be formed by attaching or to an adjective. is considered to be the only derivational prefix in Estonian; as can also occur as a separate word, + adjective can be regarded as a compound rather than derivative. Alternatively, for an adjective formed from a noun or a verb, an antonym can often be constructed using the suffix or .
Articles
Estonian has no definite and indefinite articles. The function of the definite article can be performed by the demonstrative pronoun ‘this’; and the function of the indefinite article can be performed by the indefinite pronoun , developed from the numeral ‘one’. (Pajusalu 2001)Pajusalu, Renate (2001): Definite and indefinite determiners in Estonian, in: Enikő Németh T. (ed.), Pragmatics in 2000. Selected Papers from the 7th International Pragmatics Conference, vol. 2. Antwerp: International Pragmatics Association, 458–469
Agreement Adjectival modifiers (including ordinals, demonstratives, and present participles) agree with their heads in case and number. In the terminative, essive, abessive, and comitative the modifier agrees only in number and remains in the genitive. See Case table above.
Most modifiers occur in the pre-noun position: a) demonstratives, e.g. ‘this man’; b) adjectives, e.g. ‘old man’; c) quantifiers, e.g. ‘two men’, ‘all men’; d) participles, e.g. ‘a walking man’, e) genitives, e.g. ‘brother’s book’, ‘Estonian language’; f) some oblique-case substantive modifiers, e.g. ‘wooden house’, ‘beaked cap’.
Post-noun substantive modifiers take the form of various kinds of adverbials, e.g. ‘the door to dwelling rooms’, ‘the drive to town’, ‘conversation with friends’, ‘worry about children’, ‘key to success’, etc.
+ Adjectival modification Case Singular "big man" Plural "big men" Nominative Genitive Partitive Illative Inessiv(e) Elative Allative Adessive Ablative Translative Terminative Essive Abessive Comitative
The non-agreement of the last four cases in Estonian is the manifestation of the postpositionality of the affixes of the above cases. Postpositionality implies that there is no need to repeat the case endings in coordinated phrases, e.g. ‘with a man and a woman’. The above affixes were treated as postpositions in earlier grammars, and some grammarians still follow this tradition. Only the comitative evolved directly from a postposition; the other cases followed suit.
Pro-adjectives numeral (nominative – genitive – partitive, with noun in singular nominative for 1 and in singular partitive for others): (0), (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9), (10), (11–19), (20–90), (100), (200–900), (1,000–999,000), (1,000,000–999,000,000), (1,000,000,000); ordinal: (first), (second), (third), cardinal_genitive – cardinal_genitive – cardinal_genitive (others) demonstrative (nominative – genitive – partitive, singular / plural): (this kind), (this/that), (yonder) interrogative (nominative – genitive – partitive): (what kind), (which) existential (nominative – genitive – partitive): (some kind), (some) free choice (nominative – genitive – partitive): (any kind), (any) universal (nominative – genitive – partitive): (every kind), (every)
Adpositions
The following lists are not exhaustive.
Postpositions with the genitive case and declinable (illative/allative – inessive/adessive – elative/ablative): (under), (in front of), (at), (after), (in the middle), (above), (beside), (in the hand of), (near), (on), (in), (behind), (between), (by) with the genitive case and non-declinable: (for), (according to), (via), (about), (on account of), (vis-à-vis), (against), (over), (around) with the partitive case: (along) with the elative case: (down), (through), (since)
Prepositions with the genitive case: (through), (besides), (over), (around) with the partitive case: (down), (before), (amid), (along), (alongside), (after), (against) with the terminative case: (until) with the abessive case: (without) with the comitative case: (with)
Verbs
The inflectional endings as listed below are added to the stem of a verb, which is formed from: indicative mood active voice singular first person of positive present tense (by dropping ): indicative mood active voice of present tense, conditional mood active voice of present tense, imperative mood active voice singular second person of present tense,