In grammar, relating to a case in Finnish and other languages that indicates motion toward something flat or a surface.
From 'flat' + Latin '-ive' suffix, used in linguistic terminology to describe grammatical cases. This is a specialized term from linguistic study of Uralic languages like Finnish.
Finnish has 15 different cases (compared to almost none in English)—the 'flative' case specifically shows when something is moving toward a flat surface or space, which is such a precise way to describe movement that English speakers never even thought to grammaticalize!
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