Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Superessive case

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit

The superessive case (abbreviated SUPE) is a grammatical declension indicating location on top of, or on the surface of something. Its name comes from Latin supersum, superesse: to be over and above.

While most languages communicate this concept through the use of adpositions, there are some, such as Hungarian which make use of cases for this grammatical structure.

An example in Hungarian: a könyveken means "on the books", literally "the books-on".

In Finnish, superessive is a type of adverb. For example:

kaikkialla means "everywhere" (literally "everything-at")

täällä means "(at) here" (from tämä - "this", lit. "at this place")

In Lezgian, the superessive case is marked with suffixes: sew-re-l 'on the bear'.

References

Superessive case Wikipedia