Elatiiviga

Elatiiviga refers to the elative case in Estonian grammar, a grammatical form used to express origin or source, typically translated as “from” or “out of.” It is one of the locative cases and is primarily attached to a noun to indicate movement away from a place or material origin.

In the singular, the elative is formed by adding the suffix -st to the noun stem, with possible phonological adjustments for certain words. Common examples include maast (from the ground), veest (from the water), käest (from the hand), and ajast (from time). The elative is frequently used with verbs of movement or change of location to specify where someone or something comes from.

The elative is distinct from other cases that mark location or direction, such as the inessive (in), allative (onto/onto a surface), and illative (into). While the elative indicates source, the other cases indicate position or destination. The elative can also interact with consonant and vowel alternations in riverside forms of nouns, and some nouns may exhibit irregular or less common elative forms.

Cross-linguistically, a similar case exists in Finnish (elatiivi), which serves a comparable function of expressing origin or source, illustrating the broader Uralic framework in which Estonian’s elatiiviga operates.

See also: Estonian grammar, grammatical cases, elative.