Illative case

Template:Short description In grammar, the illative case (Template:IPAc-en; abbreviated Template:Sc; from Template:Langx "brought in") is a grammatical case used in the Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Hungarian and Vepsian languages. It is one of the locative cases, and has the basic meaning of "into (the inside of)". Examples include:

• Hungarian: ('into the house', with meaning 'the house').
• Estonian: and ('into the house'), formed from ('house').
• Finnish: ('into the house'), formed from ('a house').
• Lithuanian: ('into the boat') formed from ('boat').
• Latvian: ('into the boat') formed from ('boat').

In Finnish

The case is formed by adding -hVn, where 'V' represents the last vowel, and then removing the 'h' if a simple long vowel would result. For example, + Vn becomes with a simple long 'oo'; cf. + hVn becomes , without the elision of 'h'. This unusually complex way of adding a suffix can be explained by its reconstructed origin: a voiced palatal fricative. (Modern Finnish has lost palatalization and fricatives other than 'h' or 's'.) In some dialects spoken in Ostrobothnia, notably South Ostrobothnia, the 'h' is not removed; one says . Some dialects of Finland Proper and Kymenlaakso also have a similar feature. In some instances is added, e.g. (room) and (London) thus and respectively.

The other locative cases in Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are:

• Inessive case ("(to be) in")
• Elative case ("out of")
• Adessive case ("(to be) on")
• Allative case ("onto")
• Ablative case ("from, off")

In Lithuanian

The illative case, denoting direction of movement, is now less common in the standard language but is common in the spoken language, especially in certain dialects. Its singular form, heard more often than the plural, appears in books, newspapers, etc. Most Lithuanian nouns can take the illative ending, indicating that from the descriptive point of view the illative still can be treated as a case in Lithuanian. Since the beginning of the 20th century it isn't included in the lists of standard Lithuanian cases in most grammar books and textbooks, and the prepositional construction į+accusative is more frequently used today to denote direction. The illative case was used extensively in older Lithuanian; the first Lithuanian grammar book, by Daniel Klein, mentions both illative and į+accusative but calls the usage of the illative "more elegant". Later, it has often appeared in the written texts of the authors who grew up in Dzūkija or Eastern Aukštaitija, such as Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius.

The illative case in Lithuanian has its own endings, which are different for each declension paradigm, although quite regular, compared with some other Lithuanian cases. An ending of the illative always ends with in the singular, and is the final part of an ending of the illative in the plural.

Certain fixed phrases in the standard language are illatives, such as ("to arraign"), ("turn right"), ("for the sake of" or "in the name of", e.g., in the name of the political party "Vardan Lietuvos", "For Lithuania").

Examples of the illative case in Lithuanian

	Nominative		Illative		Gloss
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
masc.	Template:Wikt-lang				war(s)
	Template:Wikt-lang				bear(s)
	Template:Wikt-lang				stone(s)
fem.	Template:Wikt-lang				river(s)
	Template:Wikt-lang				sea(s)
	Template:Wikt-lang				apple tree(s)

In Tungusic languages

Tungusic languages have a rich case system, and as shown below the allative is among them:

Declension Table

Case	Vowel stem	Plosive stem	Nasal stem
Nominative	bira	dət	oron
Accusative	bira-βa	dət-pe	oron-mo
Indefinite accusative	bira-ja	dət-je	oron-o
Dative–locative	bira-dū	dət-tū	oron-dū
Allative	bira-tki	dət-tiki	oron-ti
Illative	bira-lā	dət-[tu]lə̄	oron-dulā
Prolative	bira-lī	dət-[tu]lī	oron-dulī
Allative-locative	bira-kla	dət-iklə	oron-ikla
Elative	bira-duk	dət-tuk	oron-duk
Ablative	bira-git	dət-kit	oron-njít
Instrumental	bira t	dət-it	oron-di

External links

• Hungarian illative case from www.HungarianReference.com