Allative case is a type of the locative case

Locative case

Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...

s used in several languages. The term allative is generally used for the lative case

Lative case

Lative is a case which indicates motion to a location. It corresponds to the English prepositions "to" and "into". The lative case belongs to the group of the general local cases together with the locative and separative case...

 in the majority of languages which do not make finer distinctions.

Finnish language

In the Finnish language

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

, the allative is the fifth of the locative cases

Declension

In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...

, with the basic meaning of "onto". Its ending is -lle, for example pöytä (table) and pöydälle (onto the top of the table). In addition, it is the logical complement of the adessive case

Adessive case

In Uralic languages, such as Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian, the adessive case is the fourth of the locative cases with the basic meaning of "on". For example, Estonian laud and laual , Hungarian asztal and asztalnál...

 for referring to "being around the place". For example, koululle means "to the vicinity of the school". With time, the use is the same: ruokatunti (lunch break) and ... lähti ruokatunnille ("... left to the lunch break"). Some actions require the case, e.g. kävely - mennä kävelylle "a walk - go for a walk".

The other locative cases in Finnish and Estonian

Estonian language

Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...

 are:

• Inessive case
  Inessive case
  Inessive case is a locative grammatical case. This case carries the basic meaning of "in": for example, "in the house" is "talo·ssa" in Finnish, "maja·s" in Estonian, "etxea·n" in Basque, "nam·e" in Lithuanian and "ház·ban" in Hungarian.In Finnish the inessive case is typically formed by adding...
  
   ("in")
• Elative case
  Elative case
  See Elative for disambiguation.Elative is a locative case with the basic meaning "out of"....
  
   ("out of")
• Illative case
  Illative case
  Illative is, in the Finnish language, Estonian language and the Hungarian language, the third of the locative cases with the basic meaning of "into ". An example from Hungarian is "a házba"...
  
   ("into")
• Adessive case
  Adessive case
  In Uralic languages, such as Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian, the adessive case is the fourth of the locative cases with the basic meaning of "on". For example, Estonian laud and laual , Hungarian asztal and asztalnál...
  
   ("on")
• Ablative case
  Ablative case
  In linguistics, ablative case is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ...
  
   ("from off of")

Baltic languages

In the Lithuanian

Lithuanian language

Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

 and Latvian language

Latvian language

Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...

s the allative had been used dialectally as an innovation since the Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-Europeans

The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...

, but it is almost out of use in modern times. Its ending in Lithuanian is -op which was shortened from -opi, whereas its ending in Latvian is -up. In the modern languages the remains of the allative can be found in certain fixed expressions that have become adverb

Adverb

An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....

s, such as Lit. išėjo Dievop ("gone to God", i.e. died), velniop! ("to hell!"), nuteisti myriop ("sentence to death

Death Sentence

Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...

"), rudeniop ("towards autumn"), vakarop ("towards the evening") , Lat. mājup ("towards home"), kalnup ("uphill"), lejup ("downhill").

Greek

In Mycenaean Greek, a -de ending is used to denote an allative, when it is not being used as an enclitic. This ending survives into Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 in words such as , from accusative + -de.

Accusative

The Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

accusative of towns and small islands is used for motion towards, like the allative case.