Eessõnade

Eessõnad are a small, closed class of words in Estonian grammar that express relations between a noun or pronoun and other parts of a sentence. They typically precede the noun phrase they govern and belong to the larger category of prepositional words. In use, eessõnad link elements such as place, time, direction, means, origin, or other relations, helping to clarify how the whole sentence fits together.

In Estonian, the role of an eessõna is closely tied to the noun that follows it. The preposition itself does not change for number or person, but the noun or pronoun that follows is inflected to a specific case required by that preposition. This means the same preposition can govern different cases depending on the desired relationship, and the overall meaning of the phrase depends on both the preposition and the noun’s form.

Eessõnad are used to form prepositional phrases that function as adverbials or modifiers within a sentence. They cover a range of relations, most notably spatial and temporal ones, but also other connections such as means, source, or possession. Many eessõnad occur as simple one-word units, while others appear in fixed expressions or multiword forms.

From a syntactic perspective, identifying eessõnad involves recognizing the word that introduces the relation and the case form of the following noun. Because Estonian relies on case inflection rather than pre-nominal articles to convey some of these relations, eessõnad play a central role in expressing precise grammatical and semantic connections throughout sentences.