illatiivvorm

Illatiivvorm, or illative case, is a grammatical case in Estonian that marks movement into a location or destination. It answers questions such as kuhu? (where to?) and is used with nouns, pronouns and adjectives when describing the target of an action. In sentences with verbs of motion, the illative specifies into which place the subject moves and contrasts with locative cases that indicate location or origin.

Formation and variants: The illatiiv is normally realized as an inflectional suffix attached to the noun stem; the exact form depends on phonological factors such as stem ending and sound harmony. In many contexts it is also expressed by a periphrastic construction using the postposition sisse (into) or a related form, which explicitly denotes movement into the object. Both modalities can be found in use: the suffixal illative is common in written Estonian, while the periphrastic construction is frequent in everyday speech and informal registers. Some nouns may display irregular or stem-changing illative forms.

Usage notes: The illative is primarily used with verbs of motion to indicate destination or direction. It can appear with various parts of speech, including demonstratives and numerals, whenever a destination into which something moves must be specified. The illative coexists with other locative cases in the Estonian system, such as inessive (location inside), elative (out of), allative, adessive and others, each serving different spatial relations.

See also: Estonian grammar, locative cases, illatiiv in linguistic terminology, word formation in Estonian.