käändele

käändele is the allative singular form of the Estonian noun käänd, which means a grammatical case. The form literally translates as “to the case” and is used primarily in linguistic descriptions rather than in everyday speech. The plural form is käändetele, meaning “to the cases.” Both forms are created by adding the allative suffix -le to the stem käänd-.

In grammar texts, käändele functions as a nominal label indicating the destination case in a discussion of inflectional paradigms. It is not a separate lexical item with independent meaning beyond marking a case in description; rather, it is a morphological form used to refer to a specific case or to the process of inflecting a word into that case.

Käändele is related to the broader concept of käänded, which are the grammatical cases of Estonian, such as nimetav (nominative), omastav (genitive), osastav (partitive), and others. The term appears mainly in dictionaries, grammar manuals, and linguistic analyses rather than in everyday language.

Because Estonian morphosyntax uses the allative suffix for direction toward, käändele exemplifies how case-target forms are constructed. Its use helps linguists specify which case is under discussion when describing word forms or inflectional changes.