Essive case

Template:Short description Template:Refimprove In grammar, the essive case, or similaris case, (abbreviated Template:Sc) is a grammatical case. The essive case on a noun can express it as a definite period of time during which something happens or during which a continuous action was completed. It can also denote a form as a temporary location, state of being, or character in which the subject was at a given time. The latter meaning is often described as the equivalent of the English phrase "as a __".

Finnish

In Finnish, it is marked by adding "/" (depending on the vowel harmony) to the stem of the noun.

Examples:

"child" → lapsena "as a child", "when (I) was a child".

"My brother is a composer (at somewhere or a certain kind of)."

cf: (Nom) (My brother is a composer) vs. (Ess) (My brother works/acts as a composer (somewhere))

"composer" → "state of being a composer (the given time is the present)"

Example: ' "My brother is a composer in an orchestra".

Example: ' "As a composer my brother is unique".

In Finnish, the essive case is technically categorized as an old locative case, a case that, in some way, indicates spatial location. However, in the present language, the case has lost the majority of its spatial meaning. The case instead typically denotes a state that is temporary or inclined to change.

Some fixed expressions retain the essive in its ancient locative meaning, however: "at home" is .

Example: "I read newspapers at home."

If the inessive were used, , it would distinguish the activity from reading the papers, such as in the garage or in the garden (of the home).

• "I have a bathroom in my home" (not in the garage or garden).

The essive case is also used in a temporal sense with certain nouns, notably the names of weekdays, and (year), (morning), (evening), and (night), as well as dates.

"(on) last Monday."

"on 6 December".

"on this day"

"(during) last year"

When marking something that cannot literally change states, the essive case can implicate the presence of alternative states, even two individual, differing "worlds". That can be seen in the following example:

Example: "I bought the pearl thinking it was genuine [but later found out that it was not]."

The example above illustrates the process by which marking of the essive case can be seen as creating two differing "worlds": one real and one illusionary. The "temporary" component of the meaning encoded by marking of the essive case on the Finnish word for "genuine" () makes a distinction between the perceived state of the subject, as genuine at the time of purchase, and the actual state of subject, as not genuine as it is now perceived or at the time of the moment of speech.

Estonian

In Estonian, it is marked by adding "-na" to the genitive stem. Marking of the case in Estonian denotes the capacity in which the subject acts. The essive case is used for indicating "states of being" but not of "becoming", which is instead marked by the translative case, the elative case, or the nominative case.

Examples:

"He works as an engineer."

See also

• Essive-formal case
• Essive-modal case

External links

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