Illative case
Illative case in the Finno-Ugric languages
Illative is, in the Finnish language, Estonian language and the Hungarian language, the third of the locative cases with the basic meaning of "into (the inside of)".
An example from Hungarian would be "a házba" (into the house).
An example from Estonian would be "majja" (into the house), formed from "maja" (a house).
An example from Finnish would be "taloon" (into the house), formed from "talo" (a house). In Finnish, the case is formed by adding -h@n, where '@' represents the last vowel, and then removing the 'h' if a simple long vowel would result. For example, talo + h@n becomes talohon, where the 'h' elides and produces taloon with a simple long 'oo'; cf. maa + h@n becomes maahan, 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 other fricatives than 'h' or 's'.)
The other locative cases in Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are:
- Inessive case ("in")
- Elative case ("out of")
- Adessive case ("on")
- Allative case ("onto")
- Ablative case ("from off of")
Illative case in the Lithuanian language
The illative case, denoting direction of movement, is not used productively in modern standard Lithuanian and survives only in some fossilized idiomatic forms, such as "namo(n)" (home) as in "einu namo" (I am going home) from "namas" (house) and "žemėn" (to the ground). Except these and a few others idioms, prepositional constructions such as į+accusative are used today to denote direction. However, it was used extensively in older Lithuanian; the first Lithuanian grammar by Daniel Klein mentions both illative and į+accusative and calls the usage of illative "more elegant". It is often found in the works of authors who grew in Dzukija and Eastern Aukstaitija, such as Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius, who also use prepositional constructions, which prompts some linguists to call their usage "inconsistent", though the truth is that as of this writing there is little research on the subject.