Johannes Aavik found that Estonian, which had for centuries been the language of peasants, needed innovation, as its sphere of usage widened rapidly with the emergence of a modern nation. In 1912 he started writing articles to literary journals, making propositions how to develop the Estonian language. He suggested intensive borrowing from Finnish; many of his suggestions were quickly widely accepted and have become part of the standard Estonian vocabulary. From 1914 he started to artificially create new word stems to replace awkward compound words. Thus he proposed relv ('weapon') instead of sõjariist (literally 'war tool'), roim ('crime') instead of kuritöö ('evil deed') and veenma ('convince') instead of uskuma panema ('make believe').
Auxiliary words (abisõnad) carry no meaning on their own. A concrete meaning is created in conjunction with other words. Auxiliary words do not conjugate (ei pöördu) or decline (ei käändu), except for a few that decline within three locative cases (sise- või väliskohakäänded).
Adpositions (kaassõnad) clarify what's being expressed with declinable words (käändsõnad) (nominals).
Adverbs (määrsõnad) clarify what's being expressed with conjugable words (pöördsõnad) (verbs).
kohamäärsõnad (locative adverbs) märgivad kohta: ette, ees, taga, taha, kõrgel, kukil jne. Paljud kohamäärsõnad moodustavad seeriaid, mille liikmed meenutavad nimisõna sisseütleva, seesütleva ja seestütleva (lukku, lukus, lukust) või alalütleva, alaleütleva ja alaltütleva käände vorme. On muidugi ka selliseid määrsõnu, millel on ainult üks vorm: kohati, paiguti;
viisi- (of manner) ja seisundimäärsõnad märgivad tegevuse viisi, seisundeid: halvasti, vapralt jne;
kvantiteedimäärsõnad märgivad hulka või määra : kahekaupa, palju, vähe, üsna, väga, veel jne;
rõhumäärsõnad annavad edasi kõneleja hinnanguid : võibolla, kahjuks, ju siis, veel, juba, no, ometi jne;
ajamäärsõnad (temporal adverbs) märgivad sündmuse ajalisi tunnuseid : eile, homme, viimati, suviti, mullu, kaua jne.
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