Characteristics of the Estonian language in AX Semantics
Fundamentals
In Estonian, you need to know the number of a noun to form the accompanying adjectives, determiners and pronouns correctly.
Estonian has no gender for nouns. There are two numbers: singular and plural. Additionally, Estonian has fourteen cases for nouns.
| grammatical name | values | examples |
|---|---|---|
| number | singular | üks vana auto (one old car) |
| plural | viis vana autot (five old cars) | |
| cases (noun) | nominative | maja (house) |
| genitive | maja värvus (house's color) | |
| partitive | Ma värvin maja. (I'm painting the house.[part/incomplete object]) | |
| essive | kasutada laagrit majana (use the camp as the house) | |
| translative | Ma muudan selle majaks.(I'll turn it into a house.) | |
| terminative | Siit on majani 2 km. (From here it's 2 km to the house.) | |
| adessive | Kohtumiseni majal! (See you at the house!) | |
| ablative | Ma kõndisin sellest majalt teise. (I walked from the house to another.) | |
| allative | Millal te majale saabute?(When will you be arriving to the house?) | |
| illative | siseneda majja (walk into the house) | |
| elative | jalutuskäik majast (walk from the house) | |
| inessive | Ma elan majas. (I live in the house.) | |
| abessive | Ilma majata on raske elada. (It's difficult to live without a house.) | |
| comitative | koos oma majaga (with his house) | |
| adjectives (noun) | before noun | punane õun (red apple) |
| verb tenses | present | ta ostab (he buys) |
| past | ta ostis (he bought) |
The standard order of a noun phrase in Estonian is the following:
preposition + determiner + numeral + adjective + noun
See for example:
ilma nende kolme populaarse lauljata
without these three popular singer[sg,part]
PREP DET NUM ADJ NOUN
"without these three popular singers"
Lexicon
Nouns
Estonian nouns are inflected for number and case. Lexicon entries for nouns may also be necessary for inflecting determiners, adjectives and pronouns correctly. They are omitted, if a lexicon entry is required, but missing.
Examples
The basic lexicon entry for maja (house) contains:
- inflection table for case and number:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | maja | majad |
| Genitive | maja | majade |
| Partitive | maja | maju |
| Illative | majja | majadesse |
| Inessive | majas | majades |
| Elative | majast | majadest |
| Allative | majale | majadele |
| Adessive | majal | majadel |
| Ablative | majalt | majadelt |
| Translative | majaks | majadeks |
| Terminative | majani | majadeni |
| Essive | majana | majadena |
| Abessive | majata | majadeta |
| Comitative | majaga | majadega |
Note
If you need lexicon entries for countries, write to the support about that and you will get them for Estonian with automatic handling of prepositions.
Adjectives
In the lexicon, the inflection table encodes case and number. For adjective position, the default is "before noun".
Adjectives are automatically taking the genitive form when the accompanying noun is in terminative, essive, abessive, or comitative case. For example:
kollane maja (a yellow[nom.] house[nom.])
vs.
kuni kollase majani (as far as a yellow[gen.] house[term.])
Verbs
Estonian verbs inflect for person, number and tense. The most common verbs are encoded in our software. If a verb inflects incorrectly, you should add it to the lexicon.
Container settings
Determiner
The AX NLG platform supports the following determiners for Estonian: demonstrative, distal, possessive, and quantifier (every). Similar to the case agreement for adjectives, determiners automatically take the genitive form when the accompanying noun is in terminative, essive, abessive, or comitative case.
Numerals
The noun will automatically agree with the numeral number when a numeral variable is used. Four types of numerals are possible on the AX NLG platform: cardinal, cardinal as digit, ordinal, and ordinal as digit.
As the example below shows, cardinal numerals other than 1 require the partitive case in the singular number for the (adjective and) noun that follow (e.g. päeva).
| cardinal | ordinal | |
|---|---|---|
| text | üheksa päeva (nine days[par.]) | üheksas päev (the ninth day) |
| digit | 9 päeva (9 days[par.]) | 9.päev (the 9th day) |
Notice when numerals accompany an adjective and a noun, they are all in singular form:
punased autod[nom.pl.]
(red cars)
kaks[sg.nom.] punast autot[sg.part.]
(two red cars)
For Estonian, both cardinal and ordinal numerals are written out until 10 on the platform, otherwise (above 10) the output is in digit form. Take cardinal numerals for example:
kümme autot
(ten cars)
vs.
11 autot
(11 cars)
Prepositions
Estonian prepositions normally require the noun to be in the partitive or genitive case, for example, üle (over), mööda (along), etc.
Mine üle silla[gen].
(Go over the bridge.)
Ma kõnnin mööda tänavat[par].
(I am walking along the street.)
Estonian uses both pre- and postpositions. In Estonian containers, only prepositions can be set, postpositions have to be put after the container as plain text.
Consonant gradation
The AX platform applies consonant gradation in Estonian automatically. This means that consonants alternate between a strong grade (e.g. kk/pp/mb/…) in some inflection forms of a word and a weak grade (e.g. k/p/mm/…) in others. It can only take place at the border between the last and the one-but-last syllable.
The following example shows a consonant gradation from ss to s (strong to weak):
kirss (cherry, nom sg) -> kirsid (cherries, nom pl)