Allative case


The allative case is a type of locative grammatical case. The term allative is generally used for the lative case for the majority of languages that do not make finer distinctions.

Finnish

For the Finnish language, the allative is the fifth of the locative cases, with the basic meaning of "onto". Its ending is -lle, for example pöytä and pöydälle. In addition, it is the logical complement of the adessive case for referring to "being around the place". For example, koululle means "to the vicinity of the school". With time, the use is the same: ruokatunti and ... lähti ruokatunnille. Some actions require the case, e.g. kävely - mennä kävelylle "a walk - go for a walk". It also means "to" or "for", for example minä and minulle.
The other locative cases in Finnish and Estonian are these:
  • Inessive case
  • Elative case
  • Illative case
  • Adessive case
  • Ablative case

    Baltic languages

For the Lithuanian and Latvian languages, the allative had been used dialectally as an innovation since Proto-Indo-European, but it is almost out of use in modern times. Its ending in Lithuanian is -op which was shortened from -opi, whereas its ending in Latvian is -up. For the modern languages the remains of the allative can be found in certain fixed expressions that have become adverbs, such as Lithuanian išėjo Dievop, velniop!, nuteisti myriop, rudeniop, vakarop, Latvian mājup, kalnup, lejup.

Greek

For Mycenaean Greek, an ending -de is used to denote an allative, when it is not being used as an enclitic, e.g. te-qa-de, *Tʰēgʷasde, "to Thebes". This ending survives into Ancient Greek in words such as Athḗnaze, from accusative Athḗnās + -de.

Latin

The Latin accusative case is used for motion towards towns and small islands in a manner that is analogous to the allative case.

Udmurt

For the Udmurt language, words inflected with the allative case ending "-лань" /ɫɑɲ/ express the direction of a movement.

Hebrew

In Biblical Hebrew the "directional he", "locative he" or he locale, in the form of /-ɔh/ suffixed to nouns also functions as an allative marker, usually translated as 'to' or 'toward'. The directional he appears in later phases of the Hebrew language in expressions such as and .

Wanyi

, an endangered Australian language, has the allative suffixes -.