käändamist

Käänamist is an Estonian grammatical concept referring to the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and numerals to indicate their grammatical function within a sentence. This process involves changing the ending of a word to show its case, number, and sometimes gender. Estonian is a highly inflected language, and käänamist plays a crucial role in its syntax.

The primary function of käänamist is to establish relationships between words, particularly between the subject, object, and other elements of a sentence. Instead of relying heavily on prepositions like English, Estonian utilizes case endings to convey these relationships. For example, the nominative case typically marks the subject, while the partitive case often indicates the direct object of a negated verb or a quantity.

Estonian has fourteen grammatical cases: nominative, genitive, partitive, illative, inessive, elative, allative, adessive, ablative, translative, terminative, abessive, comitative, and instructive. Each case has specific endings that are added to the word stem, and these endings can vary depending on the declension class of the noun or adjective. Mastering käänamist is essential for fluent and accurate communication in Estonian, as incorrect inflection can lead to misunderstandings or grammatically incorrect sentences. The system, while complex, allows for a high degree of flexibility and expressiveness in the language.