Pöördkäändetes

Pöördkäändetes (turning cases) is a term used in Estonian linguistics to describe a historical and dialectal phenomenon in which certain nouns or pronouns appear in non-canonical case forms within a clause. The name reflects the idea that the expected grammatical role of a word is “turned” or reversed relative to the ordinary case pattern.

The concept is primarily documented in older Estonian texts and in some regional dialects. In modern standard Estonian, pöördkäändetes is uncommon and is mostly of interest to linguists studying historical grammar, dialectology, or literary language. Its occurrence is often linked to stylistic or rhetorical aims, such as emphasis, inversion, or archaising effects that evoke earlier stages of the language.

Grammatical characteristics of pöördkäändetes are not uniform; different sources describe variations that emerged across periods and communities. Generally, the phenomenon involves deviations from the regular case-marking of nouns and pronouns in a clause, sometimes alongside altered agreement with surrounding elements. The exact realizations can include shifts between genitive, partitive, and other oblique forms, or unusual pairings of case with syntactic roles that differ from the standard pattern.

In scholarly practice, pöördkäändetes is treated as a historical or dialectal feature rather than a productive part of contemporary Estonian grammar. It provides insight into the language’s variability, stylistic conventions in older texts, and the evolution of case usage in Estonian.

See also: Estonian grammar, case system, partitive case, genitive case, dialectology.