nominatiivsingulaarne

Nominatiivsingulaarne is a grammatical term used in Estonian to describe the nominative singular form of a noun or an adjective. It refers to the form that marks the word as being in the nominative case and in singular number. In Estonian grammar, nouns are declined for multiple cases, and the nominative singular is typically the base or dictionary form. The term can apply to nouns as well as to adjectives when they appear in this form, and adjectives must agree with the noun in number and case.

In practical use, the nominative singular is the form used for the subject of a sentence or for a predicate noun. It is also the form that appears as the lemma in dictionaries and grammar descriptions. Describing a word as nominatiivsingulaarne helps linguists distinguish its form from other cases (genitive, partitive, illative, etc.) and from plural forms.

Examples help illustrate the idea without altering the discussion of grammar itself. The noun koer in its nominatiivsingulaarne form is koer, as in Koer magab. An adjective in nominatiivsingulaarne form accompanying a singular nominative noun is ilus koer, meaning a beautiful dog. In both cases, the noun and any agreeing adjective are in nominative singular.

Nominatiivsingulaarne is a descriptive label used in linguistic analysis to refer to forms in the nominative singular, and it is part of analyzing how Estonian marks number and case on nouns and their modifiers. It reflects the broader concept of case-based morphology found in Estonian grammar.