The six cases inessive, elative, illative, adessive, ablative, and allative form a rather orthogonal system of locational cases, with the first three typically referring to inner relations (in, from, into) and the rest to corresponding outer relations. “Inner” means being inside or in close contact, whereas “outer” may refer to surface or surroundings. For example, lattialla, from lattia (floor), means “on the floor”, whereas lattiassa means “in the floor”, e.g. when discussing a hole in the floor.
The cases essive and partitive originally had locational meanings, too, and this is still preserved in some expressions (e.g. ulkona “outside”, ulkoa “from outside”). The essive also means, for normal nouns, being in a state or role (e.g. lapsena “as a child”). The translative often expresses the resulting state of a transition. The essive and the translative can thus be regarded as stative, “locational” in the sense of related to being in a state or entering a state. Thus, in total, 9 of the 14 or 15 cases can be explained as somehow locational! On the other hand, all these cases all have uses that are not locational even figuratively.
The following table illustrates the locational cases in the very broad sense. Note that the use of “old” locational cases is rudimentary: it mostly reflects just remains of the original simple structure of three locational cases (with broad meanings). Within them, the “Entering” case, is not really a case but a collection of forms that have multiple suffixes, reflecting multiple origins (e.g. ulo|s, luo|x, luo|ksex, rannemma|ksi). These cases often appear in adverb-like words such as ylempänä, ylempää, ylemmäksi (∼ ylemmäs), which are comparison forms of the adjective ylempi (higher, upper). They will be described in more detail in section Locational adverbs.
|
|
Inner |
Outer |
Stative |
Old locational |
|
Being |
-ssA, inessive |
-llA, adessive |
-nA, essive |
-nA, essive |
|
Leaving |
-stA, elative |
-ltA, ablative |
– |
-(t)A, partitive |
|
Entering |
-*n…, illative |
-lle, allative |
-ksi, translative |
-s, -x, -ksex, -ksi |
Like the corresponding English prepositions, the locational cases can express physical relations, as in talossa, which refers to being inside a house, but also “location” in time, e.g. syyskuussa (in September), and more abstract relations. We can be in, exit, or enter a feeling, consciousness, mood, idea, activity, companionship, etc.
In particular, we can say lähteä matkalle (to start a trip), olla matkalla (to be travelling), and palata matkalta (to return from a trip). In these sayings, Finnish uses the word matka (travel, trip) as something you can be “on”.
The expression mennä lounaalle (to go for a lunch) can be understood as locational in an abstract sense. It is correlated with expressions like olla lounaalla (to have lunch) and tulla lounaalta (to come back from lunch). Similarly, lähteä oluelle means going for a beer, and olla kahvilla means being somewhere for having coffee, e.g. on a coffee break.
When referring to abstract locations, outer cases are normally used, e.g.
The stative locational cases form an incomplete system. We can say Hän toimi opettajana (He acted as a teacher) and Hänet valittiin opettajaksi (He was elected a teacher), using the essive to indicate being in a state and the translative to indicate entering a state. However, leaving a role is expressed in other ways; there is no dedicated case for it.
When the resulting state is expressed as well, we can use the elative for the state being left, translative for the entered state: Hän siirtyi opettajasta yrittäjäksi (He changed job from teacher to entrepreneur). If the resulting state is not expressed, we need to use a completely different expression instead of just putting a word in a particular case. We would say e.g. Hän jätti opettajan toimen (He left the teacher’s job).
Inner locational cases, rather than stative cases, are used to express states and changes of state in many sayings. For example, olla humalassa means “to be drunk”, tulla humalaan means “to get drunk”, and selvitä humalasta means “to sober up”. The word humala means state of drunkenness. Another example is Olen vakavissani (I’m serious [about an issue at hand]), which uses the inessive plural of the adjective vakava (serious). If you say Olen vakava, it would rather mean that you are generally a serious-minded person, and such expressions are normally not used. But it would be possible to say, using the essive, Pysyin vakavana (I kept a straight face), referring to a temporary state of mind or its expression in behavior.
In many contexts, both inner and outer cases are possible, often with difference in meaning or connotations. In grammars, examples such as talossa (in a house) versus talolla (near a house, at a house) are often given, so that inner cases mean being inside something whereas outer cases refer to being near a place or just in its environment. However, the usage is more complicated.
The difference can also relate to the basic use of a place versus secondary use. For example, we can say Hän on koulussa (He is at school) or Hän on koululla (He is in the school building or near it). The difference here is that the inner case koulussa refers to being at school learning (or teaching), where as the outer case koululla typically relates to being there (inside or near the school building) for some other reason, e.g. in an event. Similarly, kirkossa refers to being in a church attending a service, whereas kirkolla can mean being in or near a church building for other reasons or, most often, just being in the center of village or town, “around the church” very broadly speaking.
Outer cases are used to refer to a person’s place, home. For example, Menemme kylään Virtasille means “We’ll visit the Virtanen family”. Such usage has probably promoted an extended use, even though it is foreign origin: it is now common to use outer cases about working in a company, being at an institute, or being in a shop or café. Examples: työskennellä Nokialla (to work in the Nokia company), käydä yliopistolla (to drop by at the university), and shoppailla Stockmannilla (to do shopping at the Stockmann warehouse). The main reason is that foreign languages use prepositions like English “at”, which are interpreted as corresponding to outer cases. Using inner cases in such expressions (Nokiassa, yliopistossa, Stockmannissa), though reflecting more original Finnish usage, would mostly sound odd nowadays.
Another trend, also affected by other languages, is the use of outer cases to refer to being somewhere to use it for its primary function. Thus, many people say mennä kuntosalille (to go to a health club; literally “to go to condition hall”), and if they would say mennä kuntosaliin, they would only mean going into the premises. So here the use of cases is the opposite of the old koulussa versus koululla distinction.
Thus, the use of inner versus outer cases can be complicated, and ambiguities have been introduced by the changes in their uses. Saying that someone is yliopistolla means “near the university” in the old system, but nowadays it almost always means just “at the university”.
In older usage, it was common and recommended to use inner cases in expressions for storing data, e.g. tallentaa levyyn (to save on a disk). While this is more logical, it has become much more common and generally accepted to use outer cases, e.g. tallentaa levylle. In some contexts, both alternatives are still in use, e.g. Tiedot pidetään palvelimella ∼ palvelimessa (The data is kept on a server).
In broad expressions for locations, such as “on the right”, Finnish normally uses outer cases, e.g. oikealla (on the right), vasemmalla (on the left), keskellä (in the middle). However, there are many irregularities in such expressions; see section Locational adverbs.
When referring to physical locations, most place names are used in inner cases, e.g. Helsingissä, Helsingistä, Helsinkiin. However, for many place names, outer cases are used, e.g. He asuvat Vantaalla (They live in Vantaa). These forms refer to being in a place like the inner case forms do. It is just so that some names “require” outer cases. Usually such names relate to rivers, lakes, or hills, mostly ending with -joki, -järvi, or -mäki. Inner cases would refer to being in a river, in a like, or inside a hill; e.g. Seinäjoella means “in Seinäjoki (city)”, whereas Seinäjoessa means “in the river Seinäjoki”. The name of the city of Vantaa is actually the same as the short name of a river (longer form: Vantaanjoki), and Vantaassa means “in the river Vantaa”.
The rules for selecting inner or outer locational cases for place names have many exceptions. For instance, we say Tampereella (in Tampere) and Raumalla (in Rauma) for no easily explainable reason. Even Finns have problems in selecting the correct case when using a less common municipality name. A list of municipality names and their cases, Kuntien nimet ja niiden taivutus, has been composed to help with such problems.
Most place names outside Finland are used in inner cases. Exceptions include Venäjä : Venäjällä (Russia) and plural names of island groups, e.g. Hebridit : Hebrideillä (Hebrides). Names of islands are often used in outer cases, especially in touristic contexts, e.g. Mallorca : Mallorcalla, and the same applies to resort areas in the mainland, e.g. Rimini : Riminillä. This is often applied even to states with an island as their main part, e.g. Malta : Maltalla ∼ Maltasssa. There has been some debate on the acceptability of outer cases in such contexts, but it is now widely accepted and common.
The principles outlined above apply to expressions of physical location. Other uses of locational cases are not affected. For example, even though we say Helsingissä (in Helsinki), we would say Helsingillä on pitkä historia to say that the city of Helsinki has a long history, using the adessive (-llä) together with the verb on to correspond the English verb “has”. Similarly, even though we say Vantaalta (from Vantaa), we would say kirja kertoo Vantaasta (the book tells about Vantaa), using the elative (-sta) like “about” is used in English.
In expressions like “I found a basket in the forest” and “I lost the basket in the forest”, English uses the “in” preposition, describing where the event took place. Use of cases in Finnish is partly based on different thinking. We say Löysin metsästä korin, using the elative metsästä, so a more literal translation would be “I found from forest a basket”. The underlying idea is that the basket is moved from the forest into my possession. Similarly, we say Hukkasin korin metsään, using the illative (as if we said “I lost the basket into the forest” in English).
We also say Luin lehdestä, että… (I read in a newspaper that…). One can say that we refer to getting information from a source instead of thinking that it is in the source as we read it.
Similarly, when something is being built, the illative or the allative (normally corresponding to “into” or “to”) is used. Example: Espooseen rakennetaan uusi sairaala “A new hospital will be built in Espoo”. The word rakennetaan means here “will be built”, uusi is “new” and sairaala is “hospital”, and Espooseen is an illative form, which most often means “to Espoo”.
In many contexts like this, we could use “static” cases, the inessive and the adessive, too. We can say Espooseen rakennetaan paljon asuntoja or Espoossa rakennetaan paljon asuntoja. Both mean that a lot of homes are built in Espoo, but the aspect is different: Espoossa says that the building takes place in Espoo, whereas Espooseen expresses that new homes will appear (or “come to being”) in Espoo, i.e. Espoo will get new homes.
In expressions like Talossa on pienet ikkunat (The house has small windows) the inessive indicates being part of somethings or a property of something, rather than being literally “inside” something. In such usage, the inessive indicates possession, much like the adessive can indicate possession when the possessor is a living being, e.g. koiralla on pitkä häntä (the dog has a long tail); see Expressions for having something.
The possessive use of locational cases is systematic in the sense that we can use three of them to express gaining, having, and losing possession, e.g. Veneeseen asennettiin moottori (An engine was installed in the boat), Veneessä on moottori (The boat has an engine), Veneestä poistetttiin moottori (The engine was removed from the boat).
Inner locational cases also indicate close contact. This explains usage such as Hänellä on uudet kengät jalassa (He is wearing new shoes; more literally: He has new shoes in foot). Of course, you put your feet into your shoes, not vice versa, but the Finnish expression is not based on thinking what is inside what. Rather, it expresses that some objects are in very close contact with parts of the human body. Similarly, we say e.g. panna hattu päähän (to put a hat on the head) and istua hevosen selässä (to sit on a horse, literally: to sit in horse’s back).
Similarly, we can Hän otti hatun päästä (He took his hat off) and Hän pani hatun päähänsä (He put his hat on).
Yet another specialty is that inner cases are used for substances that cover something. When we say Järvi on jäässä (The lake is frozen, literally: Lake is in ice), we refer to ice covering the surface of the lake. Similarly, Taivas menee pilveen (The sky is getting cloudy, literally: Sky goes into cloud) refers to clouds covering the sky.
Expressions like Koivut puhkeavat lehteen (The leaves of birches are coming out, literally: Birches burst into leaf) can also be understood as having “inessive of covering”. This is correlated with Koivut ovat lehdessä (There are leaves in birches).
Additional examples: kädet veressä (with bloody hands), auto on ruosteessa (the car is rusty), talo on tulessa (the house is on fire). These do not normally mean “hands covered with blood” etc., but something in that direction. Strengthening adverbs can be used to suggest an idea of “covered with…”, e.g. kädet aivan veressä.
The locational cases have many uses that do not refer to locations even in a figurative sense, such as the illative in luotan sinuun (I trust on you). Such meanings will be discussed in the descriptions of individual cases, and they normally mean that one specific case is used, without relating to other locational cases.
There are, however, specialized uses that are still locational in some extended sense and involve a correlated use of locational cases. Some typical examples: