Transwiki:Estonian/Everything and Nothing
In this lesson we'll go over some important determiners in Estonian.
What are Determiners?
[編集]Determiners are a class of words that span over several types of words, such as pronouns and adjectives, which are used to specify nouns. These primarily act like adjectives in general, and include words like my, this, every, no, each, as well as question determiners that can be used to begin interrogative sentences and specify nouns in declarative sentences, such as what, which and who.
Common determiners in Estonian
[編集]| Estonian | English | Corresponding Question |
Question in English | Declension? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| iga | each/every | ~ mitmes? | which one? (ordinal num.) | iga - iga - iga(t) |
| mõni | some | missugune? | which one? (ordinal num.) | mõni - mõne - mõnda |
| paar | a couple (of) | mitu? | how many? (cardinal num.) | paar - paari - .paari |
| see | this | missugune? | which one? (adjective) | see - selle - seda |
| selline | like this | missugune? | what kind? (adjective) like what? |
selline - sellise - sellist |
| kumb | which | missugune? | which one? | kumb - kumma - .kumba |
| mingi mingisugune |
some, some kind of (mingi can refer to both nouns or adjectives) |
missugune? | which one? what kind? |
mingi - mingi - mingi(t) mingisugune - mingisuguse - mingisugust |
- milline - informal short form of missugune
Non-Determiner Vocabulary
[編集]The following words are included in this lesson, but are not Determiners because they are standalone words. However, some may be composed of determiners.
| Estonian | English |
|---|---|
| midagi miski |
something (nothing) |
| keegi | someone |
| mitte | not |
| mitte midagi eimiski |
nothing |
| mitte keegi eikeegi |
nobody |
| (mitte) kumbki | neither (subject) |
| (mitte) kumbagi | neither (object) |
- kõik - kõige - .kõike - all, everything, everyone
- inimene - inimese - inimest - person, human
- elu - elu - elu - life
- kiri - kirja - .kirja - letter
Verbs (shorthand)
[編集]- nägema - näe - ei näe - to see
Enumeration of nouns
[編集]Nominative Nouns preceded by an ordinal determiner (1st, 2nd, 3rd, first, last, every etc.) are written in the Nominative. The determiner (e.g. number) will decline along with the noun in all other cases.
The Accusative case (III) marks the partitive in Estonian, and the partitive is used when talking about several (plural) of something (preceded by a cardinal determiner). In this case, the Nominative becomes the Accusative, but all other cases remain the same:
- paar + kass = kolm .kassi (kass becomes Accusative)
- paari + kassi = kolme kassi
- .paari + .kassi = .kolme .kassi
Phrases
[編集]|
Iga inimene teab midagi Translation
Every person knows something
Translation
Here are a couple of apples
Translation
Some cats know how to do this
Translation
That's life
That's what life is like Translation
Nobody knows this
Translation
I don't want either one
Translation
I hear some people
Translation
Which one do you want?
Translation
Does it have to be like that?
Translation
I see neither letter
Translation
Everything is here
Everyone is here |