3. It seems that the distinction between the major categories in the use of the adessive case are, in most cases, dependent on the inherent meaning of the noun itself. In a great majority of adessive expressions, those that are classified as adverbials of time are the adessive forms of nouns with inherent temporal meaning such as aasta 'year', suvi 'summer', nädal 'week', päev 'day', hommik 'morning', etc.; those that are classified as adverbials of place are the adessive forms of nouns with inherent spacio-locative meaning such as tänav 'street', kallas 'shore', õu 'courtyard', muru 'grass', laud 'table', etc.; and those that are classified as adessive-dative are the adessive forms of nouns denoting a human being as well as of the personal pronouns.

The boundaries between the various functions of the Estonian adessive case are far from being clear-cut, however. The fuzzy nature of the distinction between the adessive-dative and the locative use of the adessive was already hinted at in the course of the discussion of the difference between the possessor NP in a possessive sentence and the adessive NP in an existential sentence.

The boundary is fuzzy in yet another sense: the adessive forms meil and teil occurring in certain constructions can often be understood as meaning 'at our place, in our house, in our country, etc.' and 'at your place, in your house, in your country, etc.', respectively (Erelt et al. 1993: 62).

(11)

a. Kui ilus meil nüüd on! 'How beautiful it is in our house now!'

b. Sellest päevast peale hakkas ta meil käima. 'From this day onward she started to visit us'

c. Miks teil öö läbi tuli põles? 'Why did you have the light on (in your room) all night?'

d. Igal aastal korraldati meil koolis jõulupuu. 'Every year a Christmas tree was prepared at our school'

The distinction between the adverbial of place and that of time is also far from being absolute. There is good reason to assume that the adessive NPs väljamüügipäeval in (12a) and sünnipäeval in (12b) are inherently equally temporal. Nonetheless, the former is understood preferably in the temporal meaning 'on the day of the bargain' and the latter in the locative meaning 'at the birthday party' in the original context:

(12)

a. Väljamüügipäeval läks vanaema juba varakult seltsimajja 'On the day of the bargain sale Grandma went to the village club early in the morning'

b. ma ei söö sünnipäeval midagi 'I won't eat anything at the birthday party'

An adessive NP which is inherently neither local nor temporal in semantics may be understood in the local and/or temporal meaning. For example, the adessive NPs in (13), which are inherently neither temporal nor locative expressions, can both be interpreted in the locative meaning ('at the location of the exam/rehearsal') just as well as in the temporal meaning ('at the time of the exam/rehearsal'):

(13)

a. ta laulab katsetel teistest paremini 'she will sing better than the others in the exam'

b. üks suur tüdruk, keda olin proovil näinud 'a big girl I had seen at the rehearsal'

The semantic duality of this kind can often be disambiguated contextually. In (14a) the adessive NP loteriil is understood in the locative meaning 'at the lottery', whereas the adessive NP talve tulekul in (14b) is understood as a temporal adverbial 'at the time of the arrival of the winter':

(14)

a. Varem ma polnud loteriil käinud 'I had never been to the lottery before'

b. talve tulekul küsisin ema käest uuesti 'as the winter came, I asked my mother again'