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Comitative case

Grammatical cases
List of grammatical cases
Abessive case
Ablative case
Absolutive case
Adessive case
Allative case
Causal case
Causal-final case
Comitative case
Dative case
Dedative case
Delative case
Disjunctive case
Distributive case
Distributive-temporal case
Elative case
Essive case
Essive-formal case
Essive-modal case
Excessive case
Final case
Formal case
Genitive case
Illative case
Inessive case
Instructive case
Instrumental case
Lative case
Locative case
Modal case
Multiplicative case
Oblique case
Objective case
Partitive case
Possessive case
Postpositional case
Prepositional case
Prolative case
Prosecutive case
Separative case
Sociative case
Sublative case
Superessive case
Temporal case
Terminative case
Translative case
Vialis case
Vocative case
Morphosyntactic alignment
Absolutive case
Accusative case
Ergative case
Instrumental case
Instrumental-comitative case
Intransitive case
Nominative case
Declension
Declension in English


The Comitative case is used where English would use "in company with" or "together with". It, and many other cases, are found in the Finnish language, the Hungarian language, and the Estonian language.

In the Estonian language comitative is formed by adding the suffix '-ga' to the genitive in case of singular:

  • nina (nominative: nose) -> nina (genitive) -> ninaga (comitative: with a nose)
  • koer (nominative: dog) -> koera (genitive) -> koeraga (comitative: with a dog)


And by adding the suffixes '-de' and '-ga' to the partitive in case of plural:

  • leht (nominative: leaf, page) -> lehte (partitive) -> lehtedega (comitative: with leaves)
  • kass (nominative: cat) -> kassi (partitive) -> kassidega (comitative: with cats)

In the Estonian language comitative is also used to denote when something is used as an implement - kirvega (with axe / using an axe) or as a means of transport laevaga (by boat).

In the Finnish language, the comitative is rare and not used in spoken Finnish. The suffix is -neen for the noun and -ne for adjectives, e.g. suurine vuorineen "with its large mountains". The Finnish literary comitative expresses only possessions or attributes, and as such does not replace the preposition "from". It has only a plural, which is, paradoxically, used to denote the both the singular and the plural, e.g. tyttö koirineen "girl with her dog(s)".

In the expressions corresponding to the Estonian ones above, the adessive may be used, e.g. lehdillä "with leaves" or laivalla "by boat". The idea of "being in company" is expressed with genitive + kanssa, e.g. tyttö koiran kanssa "girl with dog". In spoken Finnish, this abbreviates to a clitic very similar to the Estonian comitative, -nkaa (via -nkans). It is debatable if this is a grammatical case, because it does not obey vowel harmony; that is, there is no form -nkää. Some dialects do have such a form, however.


Last updated: 02-09-2005 14:54:47
Last updated: 03-02-2005 06:11:56