Estonian grammar

Gradation causes consonants in a word to alternate between two grades, termed "strong" and "weak", depending on the grammar.

Some words show gradation only through the presence or absence of extra length, and the consonants themselves do not change.

The weak grade may involve disappearance of the consonant altogether, with further consequences for vowels and extra length.

There are also four special assimilative patterns: When a consonant is reduced to zero in the weak grade, this may cause the vowels of the two adjacent syllables to come together.

This change is no longer productive or predictable, but a fair number of nouns still display the effects in certain forms.

Plural illative, inessive, elative, allative, adessive, ablative, translative have a short form in some words.

(Pajusalu 2001)[3] Seethiselulifeonbe.3SGvaidonlyvaevtroublejaandviletsus.miserySee elu on vaid vaev ja viletsus.this life be.3SG only trouble and misery‘Life is only trouble and misery.’Siiahere.ILLpidimust:PAST.3SGüksonemajahousetulema.come:MINFSiia pidi üks maja tulema.here.ILL must:PAST.3SG one house come:MINF‘It is said that a house will be built here.‘Adjectival modifiers (including ordinals, demonstratives, and present participles) agree with their heads in case and number.

In the terminative, essive, abessive, and comitative the modifier agrees only in number and remains in the genitive.

Most modifiers occur in the pre-noun position: Post-noun substantive modifiers take the form of various kinds of adverbials, e.g. uks eluruumidesse ‘the door to dwelling rooms’, sõit linna ‘the drive to town’, vestlus sõpradega ‘conversation with friends’, mure laste pärast ‘worry about children’, tagatis eduks ‘key to success’, etc.

Postpositionality implies that there is no need to repeat the case endings in coordinated phrases, e.g. naise(ga) ja mehega ‘with a man and a woman’.

The verb that precedes it also usually implies real action: harjunud lugema ‘accustomed to reading’, lähen lugema ‘I go to read’, käib vaatamas ‘goes looking’, olen valmis/nõus aitama ‘I am ready/in agreement to help’, saan hakkama ‘I can manage’.

For example, consider the sentence mees tappis karu which means ‘(a/the) man killed (a/the) bear’ and uses the neutral SVO word order.

The sentence can be rephrased using OVS word order as karu tappis mees—a normal Estonian sentence that could be more precisely translated as ‘it was (a/the) man who killed the bear’, i. e., the speaker emphasizes that the killer was a man, probably assuming the listener knows that a bear was killed.

Sometimes the forms of verbs, nouns and adjectives in the sentence are not enough to determine the subject and object, e. g. mehed tapsid karud (‘the men killed the bears’) or isa tappis karu (‘father killed the bear’)—in the first sentence because in plural, the nominative case is used in Estonian both for subject and telic object, and in the second sentence because in singular, the nominative, genitive and partitive forms of the word isa are the same, as well as those of the word karu (unlike the word mees which has different forms: sg.

In a normal clause the basic word order is SVX (subject – verb – nonsubject).

‘There were / were growing some flowers in the garden.’Klaasisglass:INEolibe:PAST.3SG//loksusslosh:PAST.3SGvesi.water.NOMKlaasis oli / loksus vesi.glass:INE be:PAST.3SG / slosh:PAST.3SG water.NOM‘Some water was sloshing in the glass.’Klaasisglass:INEolibe:PAST.3SG//loksusslosh:PAST.3SGvett.water.PTVKlaasis oli / loksus vett.glass:INE be:PAST.3SG / slosh:PAST.3SG water.PTV‘Some water was sloshing in the glass.’Aiasgarden:INEeiNEGolnudbe:PPP//einegkasvanudgrow:PPPlilli.flower.PL.PTVAias ei olnud / ei kasvanud lilli.garden:INE NEG be:PPP / neg grow:PPP flower.PL.PTV‘There were no flowers / no flowers were growing in the garden.’The possessor is typically animate, as in (9), but it may be also inanimate, as in Autol on neli ratast ‘The car has four wheels’.

Occasionally, possessive constructions may be formed according to the model of normal clauses, that is, encoding the possessor as the subject and using a special verb, such as omama, evima ‘have’ (10).

The pattern of the normal clause is also used to form the belong-possession, using the olema-verb and the genitive possessor together with the pronoun oma ‘one’s own’ (11) or the special kuuluma-verb ‘belong’ (12).

In the case of some of them (e.g. meeldima ‘like’) the experiencer has to be encoded as the allative oblique (15), in others (huvitama ‘take an interest in’, hämmastama ‘amaze’, etc.)

SiimuleSiim:ALLmeeldivadlike:3PLlapsed.child:PL.NOMSiimule meeldivad lapsed.Siim:ALL like:3PL child:PL.NOM‘Siim loves children.’MindI:PTVhuvitabinterest:3SGteieyou.GENarvamus.opinion.NOMMind huvitab teie arvamus.I:PTV interest:3SG you.GEN opinion.NOM‘I’m interested in your opinion.’MaI.NOMarmastanlove:1SGsind.you:PTVMa armastan sind.I.NOM love:1SG you:PTV‘I love you.’Väljasoutsideonbe.3SGkõvastrong.NOMtuul.wind.NOMVäljas on kõva tuul.outside be.3SG strong.NOM wind.NOM‘Outside the wind is strong.’(Väljas)outsideonbe.3SGkülmcold.NOM//lähebget:3SGkülmaks.cold:TRANSL(Väljas) on külm / läheb külmaks.outside be.3SG cold.NOM / get:3SG cold:TRANSL‘It’s cold outside/it is getting cold.’(Väljas)outsidemüristab.thunder:3SG(Väljas) müristab.outside thunder:3SG‘It’s thundering outside.’Poisistboy.ELAkasvasgrow:PAST.3SGmees.man.NOMPoisist kasvas mees.boy.ELA grow:PAST.3SG man.NOM‘The boy grew into a man.’Poissboy.NOMkasvasgrow:PAST.3SGmeheks.man:TRANSLPoiss kasvas meheks.boy.NOM grow:PAST.3SG man:TRANSL‘The boy grew into a man.’Isafatherviistake:PAST.3SGlastchild:PTVkooli.school.ILLIsa viis last kooli.father take:PAST.3SG child:PTV school.ILL‘The father was taking the child to school.’Isafatherviistake:PAST.3SGlapse/lapsedchild.GEN/PL.NOMkooli.school.ILLIsa viis lapse/lapsed kooli.father take:PAST.3SG child.GEN/PL.NOM school.ILL‘The father took the child/children to school.The Estonian language has no secondary or indirect object.

If at least one of the conditions is not met, the partitive is used, for example, clause (23) denotes an imperfective activity; the clause Ta jõi vett ja hakkas siis sööma ‘He drank some water and then started to eat’ denotes a perfective activity but an indefinite quantity.

In the negative clause only the partial object can be used, e.g. Isa ei viinud last kooli ‘The father didn’t take the child to school’.

‘Take the child to school!’, impersonal, e.g. Laps viiakse kooli ‘The child is taken to school’, or the da-infinitive (except cases where the da-infinitive acts also as the object), e.g. Isa ülesanne oli laps kooli viia ‘The father’s task was to take the child to school’ Measure adverbials behave similarly to the object in that they occur in the nominative/genitive or the partitive roughly under similar circumstances, e.g. Ta suusatas viis [nom] kilomeetrit / ühe [gen] kilomeetri ‘He skied five kilometres / one kilometre’ – Ta ei suusatanud ühte [part] kilomeetritki ‘He didn’t ski not a single kilometre’; Ootasin pool [nom] tundi / ühe [gen] tunni ‘I waited for half an hour / an hour’ – Ma ei oodanud ühte [part] minutitki ‘I didn’t wait even a minute’.

In non-negated declarative main clauses the finite verb tends to retain the second position in all the thematic variants (50–51) (cf.

The positioning of the verb at the beginning of the clause and the resulting inversion can mark a speech act function (55)–(58) or can be used in narrative texts rendering past activities, e.g. (59) (cf.

Meieour perefamilySjoobdrink:3SGVhommikukohvimorning_coffee.PTVOkodus.home:INEAMeie pere joob hommikukohvi kodus.our family drink:3SG morning_coffee.PTV home:INE{} S V O AHommikukohvimorning_coffee.PTVOjoobdrink.3SGVmeieour perefamilySkodus.home:INEAHommikukohvi joob meie pere kodus.morning_coffee.PTV drink.3SG our family home:INEO V {} S A‘Our family drinks morning coffee at home.’Kodushome:INEmaIhommikulmorning:ADEputrupudding.PTVeinegsöö.eat.NEGVKodus ma hommikul putru ei söö.home:INE I morning:ADE pudding.PTV neg eat.NEGV‘At home I don’t eat pudding.’Kuidashowteyouhommikulmorning:ADEniisoruttuquicklysiiahere.ILLjõudsite?get:PAST:2PLKuidas te hommikul nii ruttu siia jõudsite?how you morning:ADE so quickly here.ILL get:PAST:2PL‘How did you get here so quickly in the morning?’MaItunnenknow:1SGsedathis:PTVmeest,man:PTVkellegawho:COMJaanJaanrääkis.talk:PAST.3SGMa tunnen seda meest, kellega Jaan rääkis.I know:1SG this:PTV man:PTV who:COM Jaan talk:PAST.3SG‘I know the man that Jaan talked to.’Onbe.3SGemamotherkodus?home:INEOn ema kodus?be.3SG mother home:INE‘Is the mother at home?’Käigo.imp.2SGsayouvahepealmeanwhilekodushome:INEära!awayKäi sa vahepeal kodus ära!go.imp.2SG you meanwhile home:INE away‘Go home in the meanwhile!’Läheksgo:CONDnadtheyometiat_lastminema!awayLäheks nad ometi minema!go:COND they at_last away‘If only they would leave at last!’Oledbe:2SGsinayouallessotubli!diligentOled sina alles tubli!be:2SG you so diligent‘How come you’re so diligent!Istunsit:1SGminaIeileyesterdayomaownkabinetisstudy:INEjaandkirjutanwrite:1SGaruannet.report:PTVIstun mina eile oma kabinetis ja kirjutan aruannet.sit:1SG I yesterday own study:INE and write:1SG report:PTV‘Yesterday I was sitting in my study and writing the report.’Polar questions are formed by means of the clause-initial interrogative particles kas (60) or ega (in negative clauses, as in [61]), verb fronting (62), or rising intonation (63).

In spoken language questions can be formed also by the clause-final particle või, which developed from the disjunctive conjunction (64) (cf.

The other secondary modifications of standard negation include changes in case marking and word order.