käändekordades

Käändekordades is a term used in Estonian grammar to describe a specific type of noun declension. It refers to the oblique cases of nouns that have undergone a sound change, specifically a k-deletion or assimilation, in their stem before taking the case endings. This phenomenon is not uniform across all nouns and is more common in certain dialectal variations or older forms of the language.

The concept of käändekordades is primarily concerned with how the singular oblique cases of some nouns are formed. For example, a noun that ends in -k in its nominative singular might appear with a modified stem in its genitive, partitive, or other oblique cases. This modification can involve the loss of the final -k sound or its assimilation into a preceding vowel or consonant. Understanding käändekordades is important for analyzing the historical development of Estonian morphology and for interpreting texts that may exhibit older linguistic features.

While modern standard Estonian has largely regularized many of these declension patterns, the underlying principle of stem modification before case marking is a fundamental aspect of Estonian grammar. The term itself highlights the interplay between the noun's root form and the grammatical function indicated by its case ending, particularly when phonetic changes occur in the stem. It is a concept primarily discussed within linguistic studies of Estonian.