grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...

, the allative case (;

abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

; from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

''allāt-'', ''afferre'' "to bring to") is a type of

locative In grammar, the locative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases, together with the ...

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In va ...

. The term allative is generally used for the

lative case In grammar, the lative (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates motion to a location. It corresponds to the English prepositions "to" and "into". The lative case belongs to the group of the general local cases together with the locat ...

in the majority of languages that do not make finer distinctions.

Finnish

In the

Finnish language Finnish (endonym: or ) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish ...

(Uralic language), the allative is the fifth of the locative cases, with the basic meaning of "onto". Its ending is ''-lle'', for example ''pöytä'' (table) and ''pöydälle'' (onto the top of the table). In addition, it is the logical complement of the adessive case for referring to "being around the place". For example, ''koululle'' means "to the vicinity of the school". With time, the use is the same: ''ruokatunti'' (lunch break) and ''... lähti ruokatunnille'' ("... left to the lunch break"). Some actions require the case, e.g. ''kävely'' - ''mennä kävelylle'' "a walk - go for a walk". It also means "to" or "for", for example ''minä'' (me) and ''minulle'' (to/for me). The other locative cases in Finnish and Estonian are these: *

Inessive case In grammar, the inessive case (abbreviated ; from la, inesse "to be in or at") is a locative grammatical case. This case carries the basic meaning of "in": for example, "in the house" is in Finnish, in Estonian, () in Moksha, in Basque, i ...

("in") * Elative case ("out of") * Illative case ("into") * Adessive case ("on") * Ablative case ("from off")

Baltic languages

In the

Lithuanian Lithuanian may refer to: * Lithuanians * Lithuanian language * The country of Lithuania * Grand Duchy of Lithuania * Culture of Lithuania * Lithuanian cuisine * Lithuanian Jews as often called "Lithuanians" (''Lita'im'' or ''Litvaks'') by other Jew ...

and

Latvian language Latvian ( ), also known as Lettish, is an Eastern Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken in the Baltic region. It is the language of Latvians and the official language of Latvia as well a ...

s the allative had been used dialectally as an innovation since the

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

, but it is almost out of use in modern times. Its ending in Lithuanian is ''-op'' which was shortened from ''-opi'', whereas its ending in Latvian is ''-up''. In the modern languages the remains of the allative can be found in certain fixed expressions that have become

adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering q ...

s, such as Lithuanian ''išėjo Dievop'' ("gone to God", i.e. died), ''velniop!'' ("to hell!"), ''nuteisti myriop'' (" sentence to death"), ''rudeniop'' ("towards autumn"), ''vakarop'' ("towards the evening"), Latvian ''mājup'' ("towards home"), ''kalnup'' ("uphill"), ''lejup'' ("downhill").

Greek

Mycenaean Greek Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece (16th to 12th centuries BC), before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the '' terminus ad quem'' for the ...

, a ''-de'' ending is used to denote an allative, when it is not being used as an

enclitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...

, e.g. ''te-qa-de'', *''Tʰēgʷasde'', "to Thebes" ( Linear B: ). This ending survives into

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

in words such as ''Athḗnaze'', from accusative ''Athḗnās'' + ''-de''.

Biblical Hebrew

In Biblical Hebrew the so-called directional ''he'' (or ''he locale'') in the form of ה ָ– /-ɔh/ suffixed to nouns (often place names) also functions as an allative marker, usually translated as 'to' or 'toward'.

English

In Modern English, the suffix ''-ward/-wards'' can be regarded as similar to a newly developed, limited form of allative case. It indicates direction of motion in some adjectives and adverbs derived from a limited set of nouns.

Wanyi

Wanyi, an endangered

Australian language Australia legally has no official language. However, English is by far the most commonly spoken and has been entrenched as the ''de facto'' national language since European settlement. "English has no de jure status but it is so entrench ...

, had the allative suffixes '
kurru/wurru
'.

Latin

The

accusative of towns and small islands is used for motion towardsAllen and Greenough, sect. 427 in a way that is analogous to the allative case.

Udmurt

In the

Udmurt language Udmurt is a Permic language spoken by the Udmurt people who are native to Udmurtia. As a Uralic language, it is distantly related to languages such as Finnish, Estonian, Mansi, Khanty, and Hungarian. The Udmurt language is co-official with ...

, words inflected with the allative (often called "approximative" in Permic languages) case ending "-лань" /ɫɑɲ/ express the direction of a movement.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allative Case Grammatical cases

Finnish

Baltic languages

Greek

Biblical Hebrew

English

Wanyi

Latin

Udmurt

Further reading

References