In morphology, the terminative case (abbreviated term) is a case specifying a limit in space and time and also to convey the goal or target of an action.
In the Estonian language, the terminative case is indicated by the '-ni' suffix:
The Hungarian language uses the '-ig' suffix.
If used for time, it can also show how long the action lasted.
It is not always clear whether the thing in terminative case belongs to the interval in question or not.
The corresponding question word is Meddig?, which is simply the question word Mi? ("what?") in terminative case.
In Sumerian, the terminative case not only was used to indicate end-points in space or time but also end-points of an action itself such as its target or goal. In this latter role, it functioned much like an accusative case does. This case was expressed by means of the suffix -še.
|