Thepartitive case (abbreviatedPTV,PRTV, or more ambiguouslyPART) is agrammatical case which denotes "partialness", "without result", or "without specific identity". It is also used in contexts where a subgroup is selected from a larger group, or with numbers.
InFinnic languages, such asFinnish andEstonian, this case is often used to express unknown identities andirresultative actions. For example, in Finnish, it is found in the following circumstances, with the characteristic ending of-a or-ta:
Where not mentioned, the accusative case would be ungrammatical. For example, the partitive must always be used after singular numerals.
As an example of the irresultative meaning of the partitive,ammuin karhun (accusative) means "I shot the bear (dead)", whereasammuin karhua (partitive) means "I shot (at) the bear" without specifying if it was even hit. Notice that Finnish has no nativefuture tense, so that the partitive provides an important reference to the present as opposed to the future. Thusluen kirjaa means "I am reading a/the book" whereasluen kirjan means "I will read a/the book". Thus "luen" can mean "I read", "I am reading" or "I will read" depending on the case form of the word that follows. The partitive formkirjaa indicates incompleted action and hence the meaning of the verb form is present tense. The accusative formkirjan indicates completed action when used with the past tense verb but indicates planned future action when used with a verb in the present tense. Henceluen kirjan means "I will read the book".
The case with an unspecified identity isonko teillä kirjoja, which uses the partitive, because it refers to unspecified books, as contrasted tonominativeonko teillä (ne) kirjat?, which means "do you have (those) books?"
The partitive case comes from the olderablative case. This meaning is preserved e.g. inkotoa (from home),takaa (from behind), where it means "from".
A Western Finnish dialectal phenomenon seen in some dialects is the assimilation of the final-a into a preceding vowel, thus making thechroneme the partitive marker. For example,suurii →suuria "some big --".
In Estonian, the system is generally similar. In Estonian grammatical tradition, the term "accusative" is not used, since like in Finnish, the total object form coincides with the genitive in the singular, and the nominative in the plural.
In many Estonian words, the difference between the full and partial object cases is only in vowel or consonant quantity (long vs overlong), which is not marked in writing, except for stop consonants. Thus, the distinction between a total and partial object may be apparent in speech but not in writing. For example, the sentenceLinn ehitab kooli would mean "The city will build a/the school" when pronounced with a long vowel "o" inkooli "school (genitive case)", and "The city is building a/the school" with an overlong "o" (partitive case).
For many verbs in Estonian, an additional adverb is almost always added when a completed action is meant - for example,ma söön leiba "I'm eating bread", vsma söön leivaära "I will eat the (whole) bread". Since Estonian, unlike Finnish, has words where the genitive and partitive singular are identical even in pronunciation, this can provide disambiguation in those cases - e.gma söön kala "I'm eating fish", vsma söön kala ära "I will eat (all of) the fish".
Of theSámi languages,Inari andSkolt Sámi still have a partitive, although it is slowly disappearing and its function is being taken over by other cases.
Thepartitive is used only in thesingular and can always be replaced by the genitive. The partitive marker is-d.
In Dutch there are manyadjectives ending in-s, which is called the partitive case. This case is derived from thegenitive case in the olderdeclension system and is used after words that signify quantity, such as the Dutchveel,weinig orniets (respectively meaning many/much/a lot, few/little or nothing):
The partitive case can also be used as acomparative:
If an adjective already ends in an alveolarfricative (likes in "suit"), the "-s" drops:
TheRussian language usually uses thegenitive case to express partialness. However, some Russianmass nouns have developed a distinct partitive case, also referred to as the "second genitive case". The partitive arose from the merger of the declensions of*-ŏ and*-ŭ stem nouns inOld East Slavic, which left the former*-ŭ stem genitive suffix available for a specialized use.[1]
In modern Russian, use of the partitive case is often facultative. In many situations, the partitive and the genitive can be used almost synonymously:чашка чаю,cháshka cháyu (partitive) andчашка чаяcháshka cháya (genitive) both mean "a cup of tea";много дыму,mnógo dýmu (partitive) andмного дымаmnógo dýma (genitive) both mean "lots of smoke". The partitive variant is preferred with verbs:выпить чаю,výpit' cháyu, "to have a drink of tea". The genitive variant is used more frequently when the mass noun is modified by an adjective:чашка горячего чаяcháshka goryáchevo cháya, "a cup of hot tea".[2]