Estonian: Noun Cases

[User1001]

Hei! Ma räägin tõesti vähe eesti keelt, aga ma pean esitama küsimust.

How do the nominative and partitive cases function in Estonian? As I understand it now, the nominative still contains the subject of the sentence, and the partitive is like the objective case in English - it contains both the direct and indirect objects assuming another case doesn't inflect the noun. Examples would be greatly appreciated. Tänan teid väga!

 

[Setwale_Charm]

Yes, Partitive is the equivalent of Accusative in other languages used for direct objects.
Also, it is used as actually PARTitive, meaning a quantity of something, so you would say:

3 nights - kolm ööd (öö-ööd)
many oak-trees -palju tammi (tamm -tammi)
little hope - vähe lootust

 

[User1001]

Thank you for the help!

 

[astlanda]

Hei! Ma räägin tõesti vähe eesti keelt, aga ma pean esitama küsimust.

How do the nominative and partitive cases function in Estonian? As I understand it now, the nominative still contains the subject of the sentence, and the partitive is like the objective case in English - it contains both the direct and indirect objects assuming another case doesn't inflect the noun. Examples would be greatly appreciated. Tänan teid väga!

The samples above were correct, but it's more complex.
Both object and subject may be in nominative, partitive (or genitive).

1. Subject
Men go to work.
Mehed(plural nominative) lähevad tööle. (All the men, whom we are talking about are going.)
Mehi(plural partitive) läheb (ka) tööle.(Some men, whom we are talking about are going to work some others go elsewhere.)

2. Object
You buy bread, please.
Sina, palun, osta leib (singular nominative) ! (Buy all the bread, what we need.)
Sina, palun, osta leiba (singular partitive) ! (Buy some bread.)

I bought bread.
Mina ostsin leiva (singular GENItive) ! (I bought all the bread, what we need.)
Mina ostsin leiba (singular partitive) ! (I bought some bread.)

Negative constructions use always partitive object:

Don't you buy bread, please.
Ära sina, palun, osta leiba (singular partitive) !

I did not buy bread.
Mina ei ostnud leiba (singular partitive)!