grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

, the instructive case is a

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...

used in Finnish,

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

, and the

Turkic language The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

Uralic languages

In Finnish, the instructive case is used to indicate means, manner, instrument, location, or time. It is almost exclusively used in

fixed expression A phraseme, also called a set phrase, fixed expression, multiword expression (in computational linguistics), or idiom, is a multi-word or multi-morphemic utterance whose components include at least one that is selectionally constrained or restrict ...

s, such as in 'with one's own eyes'. However, the instructive is

productive Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proce ...

for

infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs that do not show a tense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all ...

verbal constructions to indicate manner, as in 'laughing': 'They stepped in through the door laughing'. In modern Finnish, many of its

instrumental An instrumental or instrumental song is music without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through Semantic change, semantic widening, a broader sense of the word s ...

uses are being superseded by the

adessive case An adessive case ( abbreviated ; from Latin '' adesse'' "to be present (at)": ''ad'' "at" + ''esse'' "to be") is a grammatical case generally denoting location at, upon, or adjacent to the referent of the noun; the term is used most frequently for ...

, as in ''minä matkustin junalla'' 'I travelled by train'. The instructive case is only marginally present in Estonian in lexicalized expressions. Language reformers of the 20th century did try to revive it, but with little success.

Turkish

In Turkish, the suffix ''-le'' is used for this purpose; for example, ''Trenle geldim'' 'I came via train'.

Notes

References

* * * Grammatical cases {{grammar-stub