The allative case ( ; abbreviated ; from Latin language allāt-, afferre "to bring to") is a type of locative case 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 (a Uralic language), the allative is the fifth of the locative
declension, with the basic meaning of "onto". Its ending is
-lle, for example
pöytä (table) and
pöydälle (onto the top of the table). 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 (lunch break) and
... lähti ruokatunnille ("... left to the lunch break"). 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 (me) and
minulle (to/for me).
The other locative cases in Finnish and Estonian are these:
Baltic languages
For the Lithuanian and
, 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
, such as Lithuanian
išėjo Dievop ("gone to God", i.e. died),
velniop! ("to the devil" i.e. to hell),
nuteisti myriop ("
death sentence"),
rudeniop ("towards autumn"),
vakarop ("towards the evening"), Latvian
mājup ("towards home"),
kalnup ("uphill"),
lejup ("downhill").
Greek
For
Mycenaean Greek, an ending
-de is used to denote an allative, when it is not being used as an
enclitic,
[Ventris, Michael and John Chadwick. Documents in Mycenaean Greek] e.g.
te-qa-de, *
Tʰēgʷasde, "to Thebes" (
Linear B: 𐀳𐀣𐀆). 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
[Allen and Greenough, sect. 427] in a manner that is analogous to the allative case.
Udmurt
For the
Udmurt language, words inflected with the allative (often termed "approximative" for Permic languages) case ending "-лань" /ɫɑɲ/ express the direction of a movement.
Hebrew
In Biblical Hebrew (more common in Classical Biblical Hebrew than in Late Biblical Hebrew)
the "directional
he", "locative
he" or
he locale,
in the form of /-ɔh/ suffixed to nouns (often place names) also functions as an allative marker, usually translated as 'to' or 'toward'.
[Waltke, Bruce, and Michael O'Connor, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winonana Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 185-86.] The directional
he appears in later phases of the Hebrew language in expressions such as (upwards) and (homeward).
Wanyi
Wanyi language, an endangered Australian language, has the allative suffixes
- kurru/wurru.
Further reading
