Edited by Casper de Groot
[Typological Studies in Language 119] 2017
► pp. 57–90
This chapter presents an empirical study of the distribution of the essive marker in Standard Estonian and Estonian dialects. The use of the essive has changed considerably in Estonian: it almost vanished from North Estonian but was revived in the 19th century. In South Estonian, the essive ending has merged with that of the inessive. The description of the properties of the essive marker follows the questionnaire of the Uralic essive. The domains involved are non-verbal main predication, secondary predication, complementation, and manner, temporal, and circumstantial adverbial phrases. The study specifically investigates the opposition between permanent and impermanent state in non-verbal predications. The use of the marker in the essive sense is contrasted with that of the translative and also to other means of marking non-permanent state.