Distributive case

The distributive case (abbreviated DISTR) is used on nouns for the meanings of per or each.

In Hungarian it is -nként and expresses the manner when something happens to each member of a set one by one (e.g., fejenként "per head", esetenként "in some case"), or the frequency in time (hetenként "once a week", tízpercenként "every ten minutes").

In the Finnish language, this adverb type is rare, even rarer in the singular. Its ending is -ttain/-ttäin.[1] The basic meaning is "separately for each". For example, maa ("country") becomes maittain for an expression like Laki ratifioidaan maittain ("The law is ratified separately in each country"). It can be used to distribute the action to frequent points in time, e.g., päivä (day) has the plural distributive päivittäin (each day).

It can mean also "in (or with) regard to the (cultural) perspective" when combined with a word referring to an inhabitant (-lais-). Frequently Finns (suomalaiset) say that suomalaisittain tuntuu oudolta, että ..., or "in the Finnish perspective, it feels strange that ...".

Further reading
  • Anhava, Jaakko (2015). "Criteria For Case Forms in Finnish and Hungarian Grammars". journal.fi. Helsinki: Finnish Scholarly Journals Online.
gollark: As you can see, none are safe.
gollark: https://i.osmarks.net/memes-or-something/potatos.gif
gollark: That's just the viewer program.
gollark: They have an index of zim files somewhere.
gollark: The page content alone's 15GB or so, 80GB is with small images.

References
  1. Mäkinen, Panu. "Finnish Grammar - Adverbial Cases". users.jyu.fi. University of Jyväskylä. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.