The paper presents a comprehensive reappraisal of the origins of the so-called s-cases in Saami, Finnic, Mordvin and Mari. According to the received view, the element *-s- that is present in most of the basic local case markers in these languages originates in the so-called *s-lative whose origin has remained unknown. As the dominant theory suffers from various methodological shortcomings, alternative proposals have also been presented yet largely ignored. As the first functionally and typologically substantiated hypothesis on the issue, the paper proposes that the s-cases originate in Proto-Uralic postpositional phrases. Confronting the daunting task of identifying cognates of the s-cases elsewhere, it is proposed that they can be related to at least the Samoyed local cases with the element *-ntə-.

No abstract

This paper discusses the coding of three roles, Goal, Recipient and Vicinal Goal (‘to the vicinity of’) in European Uralic languages. The paper shows that Uralic languages typically use cases for Recipients and Goals, while Vicinal Goals bear adpositional coding except for a few languages with extraordinarily rich case inventories. The explanation given for this is that Goals and Recipients are expected roles, borne by inanimate and animate endpoints of transfer, respectively, while Vicinal Goal is a marked role, not retrievable directly from the features of the landmark. Consequently, a more elaborate coding is needed. Many studies only concern Goals and Recipients, but the findings of this paper show that a broader perspective is needed for arriving at a better understanding of Goal.

§1. Introduction §1.1. The genetic classification of the Uralic languages §1.2. Proto-Uralic morphosyntax: cases and postpositions §2. The directional cases in European Uralic §2.1. The inventory of the directional cases §2.2. Terminative and approximative cases §2.3. "Tertiary" cases in Permic §2.4. "Familial local cases" in Hungarian §3. European Uralic directional case suffixes by their origins §3.1. Directional cases originating in postpositions §3.2. Directional cases descending from the Proto-Uralic case system §3.3. Directional cases with etymologically obscure coaffixes §3.3.1. Mari and Permic cases with-l-§3.3.2. Finno-Volgaic cases with *-s(-) §3.4. Directional cases with deviate origins: obvious and obscure past of terminative cases §4. Discussion and conclusion §4.1. Explaining the emergence of case markers: remarks on the basic tenets of Uralists and others §4.2. Semantic functions of directional cases in light of their historical development Abbreviations References Finnic (here represented by Olonetsian, Finnish, Estonian, Veps, Livonian): 2-4 / total of 8-22 cases Common Finnic illative *-hen (§3.3.2) Common Finnic (except Livonian) allative-(l)le; Karelian adessive-allative-lla (§3.1) Veps approximative-nnoks (§3.1) Veps terminative-hesai (§3.4) Estonian terminative-ni (§3.4) Livonian dative-n (§3.4) Saami (represented by Lule, North and South Saami): 1 / 6-9 Common Saami illative *-se n (§3.