Läänemeresoome käändesüsteemidest Mihkel Veske kirjatööde valgusel
On the case systems of the Balto-Finnic languages in light of the written work of Mihkel Veske

Summary/Abstract: This paper investigates the written work of the multifaceted scientist Mihkel Veske (earlier Michael Weske; 1843–1890) and his treatment of the cases of Balto-Finnic languages (the number, order and designations of cases). In his linguistic activities M. Veske took the Finnish grammarians as his starting point (G. E. Eurén, A. Ahlqvist a.o.). His main achievements became evident in the development of the case system of the Estonian language. Thanks to him, the category of defi niteness/ indefi niteness (which was created on the basis of the Indo-European languages) and the relative case, related to defi niteness, were defi nitively abandoned. The latter was also discarded by F. J. Wiedemann. M. Veske confi dently applied to Estonian morphology such necessary cases as the abessive, essive, comitative and terminative, the existence of which were partially disavowed by E. Ahrens and completely by F. J. Wiedemann.

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