Estonian grammar

Estonian grammar is the grammar of the Estonian language.

Estonian Grammar (1637) by Heinrich Stahl

Grammatical processes

Consonant gradation

See also: Consonant gradation

Estonian consonant gradation is a grammatical process that affects obstruent consonants at the end of the stressed syllable of a word. Gradation causes consonants in a word to alternate between two grades, termed "strong" and "weak", depending on the grammar. Some grammatical forms trigger the weak grade, while others retain the strong grade. It is not predictable which form will have which grade; this must simply be memorised. Not all words show gradation. In particular, words with stems of three or more syllables generally do not gradate, nor do words with stems of one syllable.

Gradation correlates with the appearance of extra length on a syllable. When a syllable is long, the strong grade will always be accompanied by extra length. The weak grade may or may not have extra length, depending on other factors. These are mentioned at Estonian phonology - Suprasegmental length. Some words show gradation only through the presence of absence or extra length, and the consonants themselves do not change. In this article, extra length is shown with a backtick ` before the vowel of the syllable.

The gradation patterns of geminate (long) consonants are relatively simple:

• Standing alone after a short vowel, the strong grade appears as a double voiceless consonant, while a single voiceless consonant appears in the weak grade.
• After a long vowel, or in a consonant cluster, the strong grade appears with a single voiceless consonant, while a voiced consonant appears in the weak grade.
• Long ss only gradates when it appears at the end of a cluster, with s appearing in the weak grade.

Strong	Weak	Example
pp	p	s`epp: sepa
tt	t	v`õtta: võtan
kk	k	h`akkama: hakata
p	b	k`upja: kubjas, k`ilp: kilbi
t	d	s`aatev: saadan, k`artma: kardan
k	g	v`ilkuma: vilgun
ss	s	k`irss: kirsi

Patterns for single plosives are more varied and unpredictable. The weak grade may involve disappearance of the consonant altogether, with further consequences for vowels and extra length.

Strong	Weak	Example	Notes
b	v	k`aebama: kaevata
	∅	tuba: t`oa	When next to u.
d, t	∅	`aed: aia, l`eht: lehe	Voiceless t appears in the cluster ht.
	j	rada: raja	When followed by a and preceded by a short vowel other than e or i.
g, k	∅	`arg: ara, lugema: l`oen, h`ahk: haha	Voiceless k appears in the clusters hk and sk.
	j	m`ärg: märja	When followed by a or e and preceded by l or r which is preceded by e, ä or ü.

There are also four special assimilative patterns:

Strong	Weak	Example
mb	mm	h`amba : hammas
nd	nn	k`andma : kannan
ld	ll	p`õld: põllu
rd	rr	k`ord: korra

When a consonant is reduced to zero in the weak grade, this may cause the vowels of the two adjacent syllables to come together. These vowels undergo several changes:

• If the first vowel is long, it is shortened. Examples: r`oog: r`oa, n`eedma: n`ean.
• If either vowel is i, u or ü, it is lowered to e, o or ö respectively. Examples: nuga: n`oa, s`aagima: s`aen, süsi: s`öe.
• If the first vowel is a diphthong ending in e, the e becomes j. Examples: p`oeg: poja, `aeglema: ajelda.
• If the first vowel is a diphthong ending in u, the u becomes v. Examples: h`aug: havi.
• If the first vowel is a diphthong ending in any other sound, the second vowel is removed if it is identical. Examples: t`eadma: t`ean, l`iug: l`iu.

Assibilation

Assibilation is a change that happened in Proto-Finnic: the sequence ti became si. This change is no longer productive or predictable, but a fair number of nouns still display the effects in certain forms. The effect is visible in that sometimes s appears where there would otherwise be a t or d. This also creates new variants of the gradation patterns mentioned above, with s appearing in some of the forms in both the strong and weak grade.

For example:

• käsi, genitive singular käe, illative singular kätte, partitive plural käsi.
• uus, genitive singular uue, illative singular uude, partitive plural uusi.
• vars, genitive singular varre, illative singular varde, partitive plural varsi.
• kaas, genitive singular kaane, illative singular kaande, partitive plural kaasi. Also an example of another change that happened in some words, in which n disappeared before s. Consequently, there is no n in the forms that have assibilation.
• kolmas, genitive singular kolmanda. Here, too, n disappeared before s.
• kaks, genitive singular kahe, illative singular kahte. In this particular case, ht becomes ks where assibilation occurred.
• minema, first-person singular present lähen, first-person singular past läksin. Same as above.

Nouns

Case	Singular ending	Plural ending	Meaning/use	Answers to question; notes
Basic/grammatical cases
Nominative	∅ (with or without vowel)	-d	Subject, object of imperative, (in plural) complete (telic) object	Who? What?
Genitive	∅ (with vowel)	-de/-te	Possession, relation, (in singular) complete (telic) object	Whose? His?/Hers?
Partitive	-d, -t, ∅ (with vowel)	-id, -sid, ∅ (modified vowel)	Partial object, indefinite amount	Whom? Him?/Her?
Interior ("in") locative cases
Illative	-sse, -∅ (with vowel)	-desse/-tesse, -isse	In, into	Whither?
Inessive	-s	-des/-tes, -is	In, inside	Wherein?
Elative	-st	-dest/-test, -ist	Out of	Whence?
Exterior ("on") locative cases
Allative	-le	-dele/-tele, -ile	Towards, onto	Whither?
Adessive	-l	-del/-tel, -il	At, on, upon	Whereon?, on top of
Ablative	-lt	-delt/-telt, -ilt	From, off	Whereof?, off of
Other cases
Translative	-ks	-deks/-teks, -iks	Becoming, turning into
Terminative	-ni	-deni/-teni	Till, until, up to, towards (a person, a thing)
Essive	-na	-dena/-tena	Being, acting as, as people/things
Abessive	-ta	-deta/-teta	Without, lacking, bereft of
Comitative	-ga	-dega/-tega	With, in company of, in combination with

Inflectional endings as listed below are added to the stem of a noun, which is formed from:

• singular genitive: singular cases except nominative and partitive, plural nominative,
• singular partitive: plural genitive,
• plural genitive: plural cases except nominative and partitive.

Singular nominative, singular genitive and singular partitive are not predictable and have to be taken from the vocabulary (gradation may also apply).

Singular genitive always ends in vowel. When formed from a stem that ends in consonant, it can take the following endings: -a, -e, -i, -o, -u.

Singular partitive can take the following endings: -d, -t, -a, -e, -i, -u.

Plural partitive is formed from either singular genitive or singular partitive and can take the following endings (some words have two forms):

• -id: one-syllable words with long vowels aa, ee, õõ, uu, öö, ää, two-syllable words with long vowels or endings -em, -en, -el, -er, -ar, -ur, -e, -ne, -s or singular genitive with one or three syllables, three-syllable words with endings -ne, -s,
• -sid: one-syllable words with long vowels ii, üü or a diphthong, two-syllable words with short vowels, three-syllable words with endings -um, -on, -er, -ar, -är, -ov, -nna,
• -e: words with singular partitive endings -i, -u, -j, or singular partitive ending -a with the preceding syllable containing u,
• -i: words with singular partitive ending -e, or singular partitive ending on consonant with singular genitive ending -e, or singular partitive ending -a with the preceding syllable containing vowels e, o, ä, ö, ü or a diphthong with one of these vowels as the first sound with the exception of ei, äi,
• -u: words with singular partitive ending -a with the preceding syllable containing vowels a, i, õ or diphthongs ei, äi.

Singular illative has a short form in some words. It can take the following endings: -de, -he, -hu, -a, -e, -i, -u. In case it takes the vowel ending, this vowel is the same as the ending vowel of the singular genitive form of the given word, but the vowel (if it is already long or a diphthong) or its preceding consonant (if the vowel is short and the consonant either short or long) is lengthened to the third degree and thus becomes overlong. If illative ends with -sesse, then the short form is -sse.

Plural illative, inessive, elative, allative, adessive, ablative, translative have a short form in some words. If the plural partitive ends with -id, then the short plural stem is this form without -d (instead of plural genitive with -de-); if it ends with a vowel, then the short plural stem is this form; if it ends with -sid, then the short plural cannot be formed.

Emphasis: noun + -gi (after a final voiced consonant or vowel) / -ki (after a final voiceless consonant).

New nouns can be derived from existing nouns, adjectives and verbs using suffixes like -ja (agent, from -ma infinitive), -mine (gerund, from -ma infinitive), -la, -nna, -tar, -ur, -stik, -ndik, -nik, -ik, -k, -ng, -lane, -line, -kene, -ke, -e, -ndus, -dus, -us, -is, -kond, -nd, -istu, -u.

Pronouns

Estonian: Declension of personal pronouns
		1	2	3
singular	nominative	m(in)a	s(in)a	t(em)a
	genitive	m(in)u	s(in)u	t(em)a
	partitive	mind	sind	teda
plural	nominative	m(ei)e	t(ei)e	n(em)ad
	genitive	m(ei)e	t(ei)e	nende
	partitive	meid	teid	neid

• reflexive (nominative - genitive - partitive, singular / plural): ise - enese/enda - ennast/end / ise - eneste/endi - endid (-self)
• demonstrative (nominative - genitive - partitive, singular / plural): see - selle - seda / need - nende - neid (this/that), too - tolle - toda / nood - nonde - noid (yonder)
• interrogative (nominative - genitive - partitive): kes - kelle - keda (who), mis - mille - mida (what), milline - millise - millist (which out of many), kumb - kumma - kumba (which out of two)
• existential (nominative - genitive - partitive): keegi - kellegi - kedagi (someone), miski - millegi - midagi (something), mõni - mõne - mõnda (some), ükski - ühegi - ühtegi (one)
• free choice (nominative - genitive - partitive): mingi - mingi - mingit (anyone/anything/any), kumbki - kummagi - kumbagi (either)
• universal (nominative - genitive - partitive): kõik - kõige - kõike (everyone/everything/each), mõlemad - mõlema - mõlemat (both)

Cases

There are traditionally considered to be 14 noun cases in Estonian:[1]

#	Case	Singular		Plural
		Example in Estonian	Example in English	Example in Estonian	Example in English
1	Nominative	ilus raamat	a beautiful book	ilusad raamatud	beautiful books (as subject or total object)
2	Genitive	ilusa raamatu	of a beautiful book; a beautiful book (as total object)	ilusate raamatute	of beautiful books;
3	Partitive	ilusat raamatut	a beautiful book (as a partial object)	ilusaid raamatuid	beautiful books (as a partial object)
4	Illative	ilusasse raamatusse	into a beautiful book	ilusatesse raamatutesse	into beautiful books
5	Inessive	ilusas raamatus	in a beautiful book	ilusates raamatutes	in beautiful books
6	Elative	ilusast raamatust	from a beautiful book	ilusatest raamatutest	from beautiful books
7	Allative	ilusale raamatule	onto a beautiful book	ilusatele raamatutele	onto beautiful books
8	Adessive	ilusal raamatul	on a beautiful book	ilusatel raamatutel	on beautiful books
9	Ablative	ilusalt raamatult	off a beautiful book	ilusatelt raamatutelt	off beautiful books
10	Translative	ilusaks raamatuks	[to turn] (in)to a beautiful book	ilusateks raamatuteks	[to turn] (in)to beautiful books
11	Terminative	ilusa raamatuni	up to a beautiful book	ilusate raamatuteni	up to beautiful books
12	Essive	ilusa raamatuna	as a beautiful book	ilusate raamatutena	as beautiful books
13	Abessive	ilusa raamatuta	without a beautiful book	ilusate raamatuteta	without beautiful books
14	Comitative	ilusa raamatuga	with a beautiful book	ilusate raamatutega	with beautiful books

Locative cases make up six or eight of these fourteen (depending on interpretation).

There are also some additional cases such as the prolative (jalgsi, "by foot"; käsitsi, "by hand"),[2] or the similarly formed instructive (meritsi, "by the way of the sea"), which are not traditionally counted among the 14 grammatical cases.

Adjectives

Inflectional endings as listed below are added to the stem of an adjective, which is formed like the one for nouns.

The stem for the comparative and superlative forms is the singular genitive of an adjective; if a word has two syllables in the genitive or a vowel following -ke(se), then -ke(se) is left out and the last vowel in the stem changes to -e. The genitive and the partitive of the comparative itself are formed with -a and -at.

New adjectives can be derived from existing words by means of suffixes like:

-v (active present participle, from -ma infinitive),

-nud (active perfect participle, from -da infinitive),

-tav (passive present participle, from -tud participle),

-tud (passive perfect participle), and -lik, -line, -lane, -ne, -ke, -kas, -jas, -tu.

Antonym can be formed by prepending eba or mitte to an adjective. Eba- is considered to be the only derivational prefix in Estonian; as mitte can also occur as a separate word, mitte + adjective can be regarded as a compound rather than derivative. Alternatively, for an adjective formed from a noun or a verb, an antonym can often be constructed using the suffix -tu or -matu.

Pro-adjectives

• numeral (nominative - genitive - partitive, with noun in singular nominative for 1 and in singular partitive for others): null - nulli - nulli (0), üks - ühe - üht (1), kaks - kahe - kaht (2), kolm - kolme - kolme (3), neli - nelja - nelja (4), viis - viie - viit (5), kuus - kuue - kuut (6), seitse - seitsme - seitset (7), kaheksa - kaheksa - kaheksat (8), üheksa - üheksa - uheksat (9), kümme - kümne - kümmet (10), -teist(kümmend) - -teist(kümne) - -teist(kümmet) (11-19), -kümmend - -kümne - -kümmet (20-90), sada - saja - sadat (100), -sada - -saja - -sadat (200-900), - tuhat - - tuhande - - tuhandet (1.000-999.000), - miljon - - miljoni - - miljonit (1.000.000-999.000.000), - miljard - - miljardi - - miljardit (1.000.000.000); ordinal: esimene - esimese - esimest (1.), teine - teise - teist (2.), kolmas - kolmanda - kolmandat (3.), cardinal_genitive-s - cardinal_genitive-nda - cardinal_genitive-ndat (others)
• demonstrative (nominative - genitive - partitive, singular / plural): niisugune - niisuguse - niisugust (this kind), see - selle - seda / need - nende - neid (this/that), too - tolle - toda / nood - nonde - noid (yonder)
• interrogative (nominative - genitive - partitive): missugune - missuguse - missugust (what kind), milline - millise - millist (which)
• existential (nominative - genitive - partitive): mingisugune - mingisuguse - mingisugust (some kind), mõni - mõne - mõnda (some)
• free choice (nominative - genitive - partitive): mingisugune - mingisuguse - mingisugust (any kind), ükskõik milline - ükskõik millise - ükskõik millist (any)
• universal (nominative - genitive - partitive): kõik - kõige - kõike (every kind), iga - iga - iga (every)

Declension of adjectives
	Case
Number	Nominative	Genitive	Partitive	Illative	Inessive	Elative	Allative	Adessive	Ablative	Translative	Terminative	Essive	Abessive	Comitative
Singular	-	-	-	-sse	-s	-st	-le	-l	-lt	-ks	-	-	-	-
Plural	-d	-de / -te	-id / -sid / -e / -i / -u	-sse	-s	-st	-le	-l	-lt	-ks	-	-	-	-

Comparison of adjectives
	Type
Degree	General
Positive	-
Comparative	-m
Superlative	-im / kõige -m

Adpositions

The following lists are not exhaustive.

Postpositions

• with the genitive case and declinable (illative/allative - inessive/adessive - elative/ablative): alla - all - alt (under), ette - ees - eest (in front of), juurde - juures - juurest (at), järele - järel - järelt (after), keskele - keskel - keskelt (in the middle), kohale - kohal - kohalt (above), kõrvale - kõrval - kõrvalt (beside), kätte - käes - käest (in the hand of), lähedale - lähedal - lähedalt (near), peale - peal - pealt (on), sisse - sees - seest (in), taha - taga - tagant (behind), vahele - vahel - vahelt (between), äärde - ääres - äärest (by)
• with the genitive case and non-declinable: eest / jaoks (for), järgi (according to), kaudu (via), kohta (about), pärast (on account of), vastas (vis-à-vis), vastu (against), üle (over), ümber (around)
• with the partitive case: mööda (along)
• with the elative case: alla (down), läbi (through), peale / saadik (since)

Prepositions

• with the genitive case: läbi (through), peale (besides), üle (over), ümber (around)
• with the partitive case: alla (down), enne (before), kesk / keset (amid), mööda (along), piki (alongside), pärast (after), vastu (against)
• with the terminative case: kuni (until)
• with the abessive case: ilma (without)
• with the comitative case: koos / ühes (with)

Verbs

The inflectional endings as listed below are added to the stem of a verb, which is formed from:

• indicative mood active voice singular first person of positive present tense (by dropping -n): indicative mood active voice of present tense, conditional mood active voice of present tense, imperative mood active voice singular second person of present tense,
• -ma infinitive (by dropping -ma; if the stem ends with a consonant, an additional -i- is added in the singular third person of the imperfect or an additional -e- is added in the singular nominative of the participle, the consonant is doubled if it was short and preceding a short vowel; if the stem ends with -e while being two-syllable or if it ends with a long vowel, then the -s- is left out in all numbers and persons, ei is changed to i, a long vowel becomes short and o, ö are changed to õ): indicative mood active voice of positive imperfect, quotative mode active voice of present tense,
• -da infinitive (by dropping -da / -ta / -a; long final l, r become short, in spoken language -nud is shortened to -nd): indicative mood active voice of negative imperfect, indicative mood active voice of pluperfect, imperative mood active voice of present tense except singular second person, active voice of perfect,
• participle of passive voice perfect (by dropping -tud): passive voice.

Present tense form and -tud participle are derived from the infinitives on the basis of gradation.

-ma infinitive indicates action that has either happened, is happening or will happen. It can be declined: -ma (illative), -mas (inessive), -mast (elative), -maks (translative), -mata (abessive).

-da infinitive indicates hypothetical action, i.e. the action in general. It is used, for example, following ei, et (in order to), and oskama/võima (can). It can be declined: -des (inessive).

Verb derivation: -ta- (transitive/passive), -u- / -i- (reflexive), -el- / -le- (reciprocal), -ne- (translative), -ata- (momentane), -el- / -skle- (frequentative), -tse- (continuous).

Emphasis: verb + -gi (after a final voiced consonant or vowel) / -ki (after a final voiceless consonant), verb + küll (positive), verb + mitte (negative).

Conjugation of verbs
				Tense
				Present		Imperfect		Perfect		Pluperfect
Mood	Voice	Number	Person	Positive	Negative	Positive	Negative	Positive	Negative	Positive	Negative
Indicative
	Active
		Singular	First	-n	ei -	-sin	ei -nud	olen -nud	ei ole -nud	olin -nud	ei olnud -nud
			Second	-d		-sid		oled -nud		olid -nud
			Third	-b		-s		on -nud		oli -nud
		Plural	First	-me		-sime		oleme -nud		olime -nud
			Second	-te		-site		olete -nud		olite -nud
			Third	-vad		-sid		on -nud		olid -nud
	Passive	/		-takse	ei -ta	-ti	ei -tud	on -tud	ei ole -tud	oli -tud	ei olnud -tud
Conditional
	Active
		Singular	First	-ksin	ei -ks	/		oleksin -nud	ei oleks -nud	/
			Second	-ksid				oleksid -nud
			Third	-ks				oleks -nud
		Plural	First	-ksime				oleksime -nud
			Second	-ksite				oleksite -nud
			Third	-ksid				oleksid -nud
	Passive	/		-taks	ei -taks			oleks -tud	ei oleks -tud
Imperative
	Active
		Singular	First	/		/		/		/
			Second	-	ära -
			Third	-gu	ärgu -gu			olgu -nud	ärgu olgu -nud
		Plural	First	-gem	ärgem -gem			/
			Second	-ge	ärge -ge
			Third	-gu	ärgu -gu			olgu -nud	ärgu olgu -nud
	Passive	/		-tagu	ärgu -tagu			olgu -tud	ärgu olgu -tud
Quotative
	Active
		Singular	First	-vat	ei -vat	/		olevat -nud	ei olevat -nud	/
			Second
			Third
		Plural	First
			Second
			Third
	Passive	/		-tavat	ei -tavat			olevat -tud	ei olevat -tud

Adverbs

Inflectional endings as listed below are added to the stem of an adverb, which is formed from:

• singular genitive of an adjective (-sti, -ti, -ldi, -li, -kesi): genetival type,
• singular ablative of an adjective (-lt; some are declinable in allative, adessive, ablative): ablatival type.

Some adverbs are special words - original or vestigial forms of an ancient instructive case.

Pro-adverbs

• demonstrative (illative/allative - inessive/adessive - elative/ablative): siia - siin - siit (here), sinna - seal - sealt (there), nüüd (now), siis (then), seega (thus), seepärast (therefore)
• interrogative (illative/allative - inessive/adessive - elative/ablative): kuhu - kus - kust (where), millal (when), kuidas (how), miks (why)
• existential (illative/allative - inessive/adessive - elative/ablative): kuhugi - kuskil - kuskilt (somewhere), kunagi (sometime), kuidagi (somehow)
• free choice (illative/allative - inessive/adessive - elative/ablative): ükskõik kuhu - ükskõik kus - ükskõik kust (anywhere), ükskõik millal (anytime), igatahes (anyhow)
• universal (illative/allative - inessive/adessive - elative/ablative): igale poole - igal pool - igalt poolt (everywhere), alati (always)

Comparison of adverbs
	Type
Degree	Genetival	Ablatival
Positive	-	-lt
Comparative	-mini	-malt
Superlative	kõige -mini	kõige -malt

Syntax

The neutral word order in Estonian is subject–verb–object (SVO).

Conjunctions:

• aga (but)
• et (that)
• ja (and)
• kas (whether)
• kui (if)
• nagu (as)
• sest (because)
• või (or)

Questions begin with an interrogative word (interrogative pro-forms or kas (yes/no-question), eks (yes-question), ega (no-question)), followed by the SVO word order (in spoken language, interrogative words are sometimes left out, but instead there is either a change in intonation or VSO word order); answers: jah/jaa (yes), ei (no). An adjective precedes the noun it modifies. An adverb of time precedes an adverb of place.

However, as one would expect from an agglutinative language, the word order is quite free and non-neutral word order can be used to stress some parts of the sentence or in poetic texts, as in Finnish grammar. 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. The other four word orders (tappis mees karu, tappis karu mees, mees karu tappis, karu mees tappis) are also possible in certain contexts, especially if more words are added to the three-word sentences.

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. nom. mees, sg. gen. mehe, sg. part. meest). In such sentences, word order is the only thing that distinguishes the subject and the object: the listener presumes that the former noun (mehed, isa) is the subject and the latter (karud, karu) is the object. In such situations, the speaker cannot interchange the subject and the object for emphasis (unless it is obvious from the context which noun is the subject).

References

• Moseley, C. (1994). Colloquial Estonian: A Complete Language Course. London: Routledge.
• Tuldava, J. (1994). Estonian Textbook: Grammar, Exercises, Conversation. Bloomington: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, Indiana University.

1. ERELT, ERELT, ROSS. "Eesti Keele Käsiraamat". Eesti Keele Instituut. Retrieved 17 April 2013.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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