Locational adverbs

Similarity with locational cases

Similarly to the system of locational cases, adverbs that express locational relations usually come as triplets, for the relations of being in, exiting from, and entering a place. The similarity is partly direct in the sense that the adverbs are locational case forms, but there are exceptions to this. The case forms can be outer locational cases (with suffixes llA, ltA, lle), inner locational cases (with suffixes ssA, stA, *n ∼ h*n), or old locational cases (with suffixes nA, A ∼ tA, s), though the “entering” adverb may also have the nne^x suffix.

Common locational adverbs

The following table presents some common locational adverbs. The meaning in English is given for the “being in” adverb only. Some of these adverbs, such as sivulla etc., could be regarded as case forms of normal nouns, but most of them have a stem that does not appear as such in the language, though they may appear as a compositive form. For example, the words sisällä (inside), sisältä (from inside), and sisälle (to inside) as well as sisässä, sisästä, and sisään (with the same meanings) are structurally case forms of sisä. However, sisä does not appear in other forms, such as the nominative, except in compounds (e.g. sisäelin “internal organ”).

The differences between täällä, tuolla, siellä are similar to the differences between tämä, tuo, and se, which are their base words. This means that täällä refers to a location near the speaker, tuolla refers to a location within sight being pointed at, and siellä refers to a location elsewhere that has been mentioned or is obvious from the context. For example, Mene sinne (Go there) is meaningful only if it is clear from the previous discussion which place is referred to, whereas Mene tuonne (Go over there) can be used while pointing at a place or direction or when a relative clause or an adverbial is used for verbal pointing, e.g. Mene tuonne puun alle (Go there below the tree).

Similar condiderations apply to the associated “leaving from” and “entering” forms (täältä, tänne etc.).

The alternate forms siinä, siitä, siihen; tuossa, tuosta, tuohon; tässä, tästä, tähän are inflection forms of se, tuo, and tämä. They are largely synonymous with siellä, sieltä etc. but may imply an idea of “that thing”, “that thing over there”, and “this thing”, respectively. Thus, Hän odotti siinä means “He/she waited in that place”, as opposite to the more vague Hän odotti siellä (He/she waited there).

Comparison forms for locational adverbs

Most locational adverbs have comparison forms, typically derived from ultimate base word, which often does not appear as such in modern language. The following table shows them for the adverbs listed in the preceding table and for cardinal points of compass, for which the positive adverb is an inessive form of the noun for the point.

The first column shows the simple (positive) adverb for “being in”, and the other two columns show the comparative and superlative forms. For example, alempana means “more down there”, alempaa “from more down there” etc. The dash “–” indicates that the comparison forms are not used. For all forms ending with s, an alternative form ending with ksi exists, e.g. alemmas ∼ alemmaksi.

Some of the forms shown in the table are relatively rare and mostly replaced by analytic expressions. For example, the word vasemmammalla looks and sounds weird, and we mostly say enemmän vasemmalla (more to the left) instead. The superlative vasemmimmalla is very rare; we normally say eniten vasemmalla (most left).